


The Family We Choose: A SHIELD Codex

by KhamanV



Series: The SHIELD Codex: Judicium [10]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adventure, Gen, sci fi, shield codex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 57,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23130391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KhamanV/pseuds/KhamanV
Summary: Loki has been contacted by Nebula, working on the fringes of the galaxy as an intelligence broker since the fall of Thanos, and he suspects that what news she has to share won't be anything pretty. But things begin to shift beyond his predictions before he catches up with her, as two human friends latch on for the ride.And then the meet-up begins to reveal secrets even *he* hadn't guessed at...
Series: The SHIELD Codex: Judicium [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1137035
Comments: 162
Kudos: 98





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Posting roughly weekly to start and with zero mention of current world events whatsoever. Stay safe, stay clean, and catch up on those AO3 bookmarks you've been meaning to read!

**The Family We Choose: A SHIELD Codex**

_Out on the edge, you can see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center_ ~ Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut

. . .

1\. Connecting Flights

. . .

Loki sat on the comfortable old green couch that took up most of what passed, in the tight halls of the facility’s on-site residences, for a living room. He was resolutely not reading the paperback held aloft in one pale hand. Instead he flicked a glance at the silent laptop that sat on his workdesk, mostly as some mindless reflex, and left his other hand on the scruff of a half-asleep flerken flopped across the top of the couch. Her claws were dug in hard, enjoying the attention, even if Loki was barely aware he was doing it.

All was in order. His docket was clear, all upcoming general paperwork for his magical division of SHIELD dutifully shoved off onto Agent Peters for the time being, nothing was on fire. Hel, he’d even bothered to formerly notify HR that he was taking time off, which probably gave _someone_ a minor heart attack. If he’d actually done things properly, gods knew what he wasn’t telling them. That was fair, he supposed. But for once, his business should not impact theirs.

Loki was not inclined to treat any personal mission of his own as something worth the sensation of anxiety. His matters were typically matters of control, in some shape or form, and anxiety was anathema to his style of planning. A useless, unwelcome obstacle. And yet. And _yet_ , he felt unusually keyed up, mentally ticking the seconds before he’d get up off his arse and head out to his rendezvous points. Playing the routine moments of travel over and over in his head as if it might all go awry the second he strapped his shoes on.

He sensed Phil Coulson’s arrival at his door, his instincts prickling and then easing off again just as quickly as he realized who it was. If not yet why. He spoke up before the knock could land. “It’s open.”

Coulson opened the door a few inches and absurdly stuck his face into the crack, studying Loki’s. “Yeah, but are you taking guests?”

Loki furrowed his brow at him, setting the book down. “You bother asking today? How _novel_. I’ll mark it on a calendar, make it a holiday.”

“I didn’t know if I’d catch you packing your undies.” Coulson grinned, successfully earning a roll of the eyes from his friend. He opened the door the rest of the way and stepped in, dropping into the chair in front of the workdesk. “How long before you take off for Asgard?”

“Another two hours,” said Loki, suddenly aware of how heavy he sounded.

“Man.” Coulson swiveled in the chair, making it squeak. “By this point I’m already sitting in the airport lounge, jiggling my leg and worried I’m going to miss my flight.”

That was annoyingly astute of Coulson, in a certain fashion that Loki sometimes found comforting. But facts remained facts, regardless of his anxieties. “I’m not going to miss a flight that’s been _specifically_ arranged for me. They will not leave until I board.”

Coulson nudged the closed laptop with a finger, picked up a pen. Put it down again. “Never changes the worry. Least, for me.” He looked at Loki. “You worried?”

“Why in Hel would I be worried?” said Loki, suddenly aware of how aggravated he sounded.

“I don’t know. You _sound_ worried.” Coulson stopped futzing with the junk on Loki’s desk and folded his hands together on his lap, looking at them next.

Loki resisted the urge to curse at him. “You’re digging for reactions.”

“And I’m getting them. Damn, I’ve gotten good at this.” Coulson grinned. “Then again, I _did_ learn from the best.”

“How strange,” grated Loki, “to realize late that I am so fine a teacher.” Coulson chuckled at that, still looking at his hands. Loki realized there was a parallel reaction going on here. Coulson was equally anxious as he. About what? He examined the human face, studiously not looking at him now. That deserved a careful probe. “To what do I owe the surprise visit? I don’t believe I’ve missed anything that might set the paper pushers out of joint. For once.”

“I know, they’re still totally shocked down there. Just wanted to stop by,” said Coulson, and it sounded too easy on his lips. A lie, an obvious one, meant to be seen. “Out of Asgard to some transfer point, then to your meet up, right?”

“Yes.”

“With Nebula. The blue cyborg lady. Another one of Rocket’s weird friends or something.” Phil’s hands unfolded, going for one of the pens on his desk again. Loki had pocketed this one from a pizza joint in Jersey sometime last year, amused by the logo on the white plastic. Out of This World Pizza, with a little cartoon UFO. He doubted their boast. But it had been decently tasty pizza, and the pen was one of those surprisingly smooth ballpoints that made for fine doodling on the margins of daily reports. “I remember her. Took the business with Thanos pretty hard. Guess I understand why.”

“Yes.” Loki frowned.

“I’m glad it sounds like she’s been doing better since then.”

“Dithering isn’t your thing, Coulson. Get to it.”

A careful, studying glance. Looking out for trouble, or some unwanted reaction. Like a child that suspects a ‘no.’ Unusual for Phil Coulson. “Not to just invite myself along, but, well… I’d like to come along, Loki.”

That got a squint out of Loki, followed by a solid, silent minute of consideration. Not only was this out of absolutely _nowhere_ , but Coulson had been quite busy of late. Distant, away on matters that hadn’t come up for discussion the few times they’d crossed paths over a friendly drink in the SHIELD lounge. He spoke carefully, and not with an instant denial. He should, honestly. But there was still the sense that something else was buried here, and he hadn’t got to the core of it yet. “This will not be travel for pleasure.”

“I know.”

“Nor have I hired that mutual deranged friend Rocket for any stage of this dubious adventure. Any upgrades you had in mind to barter for your car will have to wait.”

“Yeah, I figured. You’re kind of keeping whatever this is about in your back pocket. I can guess around it. Comes back to what we’ve talked about before.” Coulson let that hang, knowing it was enough. Thanos’s generals, his ‘Children,’ were up to something and had been for some time. Loki had admitted to that a year ago, after the one called Ebony Maw had some observational spell of his blocked by Strange, and knowing then it was a matter that would come due unless he began certain countermeasures of his own. Thus, this upcoming meeting with Nebula, another of Thanos’s former generals - or, as Loki privately considered them, victims - now working as an intelligence broker.

“Yes.” The heaviness returned, carrying with it a warning that Loki suspected real danger in his days to come. “Whatever Nebula has to tell me, I do not expect good news. Coulson-“

“You never ask for help unless it’s the absolute last choice you have. I get that. And I’m human, not exactly a player on the big stage.” Coulson paused, clearly digging around for his words. “But I still want in on this. I want to be there for you.”

Loki looked away, unsettled and not sure why. Whatever he was digging for, it lay deep and close to aching bones.

The pen began to flick around between Coulson’s fingers, dancing erratically. “Because you keep trying to deal with this crap alone. And you shouldn’t have to. And-“

“What aren’t you telling me, Phil?” Loki’s interruption was all the more pointed because it was, for once, both quiet and deliberately human.

The pen twiddled, shivering between the fingers like the tail of a dog, then went down again next to the laptop. “Mack’s going to take the director’s chair next year. I want Daisy in that seat, but she’s not ready for it. Maybe another few years.”

Loki shook his head, unconvinced by the dodge. “I know all of that. I know you detest the strictures of the office, that you feel tied to this place and kept distant from the truth and dirt of our real duties. Jumping into space with me is a bit strong of an antidote, in my opinion.”

“It’s not just that.” Coulson inhaled, then dropped what he was holding on to. “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be in the field. And I want to get back to it, _in_ it, while I can.”

Loki opened his mouth, ready to argue that the human was years from any retirement age, still young enough for their kind, but realized there was another tone under the voice. Something rough, like a struggle. He knew that sound well. He sat silent instead, Frej lifting her head up to peer at the two of them as the petting stopped. She slipped down from underneath Loki’s hand and pulled herself up onto his knee to loaf there instead, purring softly.

“I’m on the edge of no longer passing my routine med screens, Loki. Really, I think they’d pull me out of my spot right now if they could, if I didn’t already have a succession plan set up. Even Talbot’s staying off my ass for now, probably because he thinks there’d be a mutiny if he pulls the bus over without my say so. I like to think he’s wrong, but I don’t know. I _do_ think it’ll be better if we do this my way, though. And I think the brass agree, at least as far as that goes.”

Loki still said nothing, uncomfortably aware of a tight, cold ball forming in the pit of his stomach.

“It’s… I don’t know what it is. Degenerating tissue, neurological disorder blah blah, bunch of weird Latin crap. Simmons could probably explain it, but I haven’t brought her into the loop yet.” Coulson shrugged. “I’ve got time. A good amount, if I settle for a retirement of bad golf and reading crappy thrillers, and I’m not going to put more risks on SHIELD than what we’ve already faced. I’m on the way out, as an agent. I’m done as a boss, and I’ll still probably get fairly old. But while I’ve still got my badge, I want to get a few things done with it.”

Loki resumed petting the flerken, his voice modulated to mimic perfect normalcy. Frej’s ears went back, knowing what he really felt, and she dug into his knee with her claws, trying to distract him from himself. He didn’t feel it. His voice remained chilled. “Is it because of what I did to you?”

Coulson shook his head, sharp. “That doesn’t matter.“

“I killed you. You then lived on, despite my best work at the time. But now the bill’s coming due, isn’t it?” Still perfectly, coldly, antiseptically normal. Under it was something much, much different. “My blade still left its scar on you, and it’s working its way deeper in at last.”

Phil leaned towards Loki, waiting until that hard, grey-green gaze flickered unwillingly to his. “Listen to me. This is no longer yours to carry around. _I’m_ saying that, hopefully for one of the last times. Who you were then, that’s old news. I know you’ll never let it go, and I get that. We can’t change what you did, or what it caused for all of us. _But_. The person you are today is my _friend_. You have been, for years, and I’ve gotten a _lot_ of bonus time out of the circumstances. And while I have it, I want to use it.

“What you’re going out there for today? This is part of the same thing we faced years ago, out at Sanctuary. All the crap from our pasts, coming due, getting wiped off the table. This is what we help each other for, to clear the ledger, so we can keep going towards something better. I want in. Maybe I’m not gonna be a big help on the front lines, but it _still_ means you’ve got someone at your back that you know you can trust. No matter what. And I know for you, that’s a big deal. It’s something you never knew you could have. Deal with it.”

Loki dropped his gaze and resumed petting Frej, who let go of his knee, her catty face turning squinty and calm again. He wasn’t completely mollified, and the guilt still cut, but the honesty in Coulson’s voice at least bade him consider.

“Daisy wants to come along, too.”

Loki abruptly threw his head back with a rough, startled laugh, not expecting the extra turn. Frej nearly leapt off his leg, her claws latching in harder yet. “Bring a whole ruddy party along, why don’t we!”

“Hey, she made a good argument to me when she figured out I was gonna ask to tag on. She’s been out there in it with you, recently even. She knows what it’s like. And she’s at least got powers.” A wry smile. “And good aim.”

The long-suffering sigh told Coulson he was getting somewhere. “I don’t know where this journey ends, yet, Coulson. I’ve an idea of Nebula’s information, but not the details, nor what I’m to do about it. I have no guarantees, and I don’t know what else we may encounter along the way.”

“We, huh?” It sounded victorious.

“Coulson,” Loki shook his head, realizing he had indeed allowed a mistake to pass his lips. “This _fucking_ planet.”

“Yeah, you love it. Or you wouldn’t be doing any of this.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Did you pack a bag before you came down to pester me?”

“Kinda did.”

“Then go get it. And may as well text Daisy on the way. You, specifically. If I must do it, I may scream. Ruddy humans, good gods, pains in my arse, all of you.”

“I’d hug you if you wouldn’t chuck me through the door.”

Loki rose, brushing cat hair off his knee. “I can see the future, Coulson. You’re going to taunt me with your feeble state and use it to try and get away with even more harassment.”

“I _totally_ am.” Coulson grinned up at him. “Never waste a good sob story, Loki.”

“Tell _me_ that.” Loki opened the door for Coulson, showing him back out. “Learned that one from my mother ages ago. Come on, then. Quit jiggling legs, we may as well grab an early Asgardian lunch if we’re going to be _festive_ about this. Meet me in the exit bay.”


	2. Power Lunch

“I can’t believe Asgard never learned about hoagies. I would have thought that’d be a lock, considering the tone around here.” SHIELD Agent Daisy Johnson poked at the slab of roast meat on her gilt-edged plate with a silver fork, watching the chunk slice next to it absorb its delicious au jus. “A giant roll of bread, meat stacked fatter than Thor’s butt-“

“Please,” said Loki with a genuinely pained wince.

She didn’t break her verbal stride, slicing a smaller wedge of meat off the more intimidating wedge of meat. “Cheese, and only a few vegetables. Y’know, for color contrast. Aesthetic.” She popped the slice in her mouth, then closed her eyes in delight. With her mouth full, she added, “I mean, it’s still frigging delicious as is, but sandwiches, dude. The royal kitchens should look into them.”

“We know what sandwiches are, Daisy. We knew them when I was a child, I assure you.” Loki ignored Coulson next to him, silently choking off his third laugh in the last ten minutes into his cupped hand. “This is not brand new information.”

“Do you call ‘em that, though? Being that we humans, like, named them for a guy?”

Loki stared up at the perfect blue sky of Asgard and said nothing.

“Do you? This is a legitimate question.”

“Cram.”

Daisy put her next slice of meat back down and looked at him. “You didn’t just tell me to shove it, I bet.”

“No. Our ‘sandwiches’ are sent out as field rations, oftentimes. Wrapped tight in cheap linen not unlike a classy sort of take-away sub. The warriors call them cram. Because of how the contents are all sort of… crammed together. In the bread.” It was a bright and lovely afternoon in Asgard, and Loki sounded exhausted as all hell.

Daisy stared at him.

Loki shrugged. “Yeah.”

“‘Sandwich’ is way better.”

“Well, no chef ever named their ruddy brat that around here, we’ve no Lord All-Father of Subway Sandwich or whatever the ruddy _fuck_ , so we all just have to deal with it. Yes? _Good_? Eat your damned lunch.” Loki tore off a hunk of bread from an enormous sourdough boule left in the center of the table and munched on it with all the hostility he could muster. Which was a fair amount.

“You alright, dude?” Daisy let the mini-rage blow over her without so much as a twitch. It could be interpreted that she had been egging him on to cause a minor blow-out of this exact nature, because it was obvious he was also still as anxious as a cat on a fraying powerline, and that would, as it happened, be the correct interpretation. She studied him, seeing his shoulders relax a fraction. “That help a bit?”

“Don’t pull me into shouting at you, I don’t care for the guilt after.” He continued to munch, looking at neither of his human companions.

“Eh, I literally brought it on myself.” She finished up the meat slab and leaned back in the elderwood chair, looking up as a cloud passed overhead. “It’s gonna be okay, dude. We’re gonna go meet your ship in an hour, and they’ll be just some nobodies happy for a paycheck. No double-crossing, nothing weird. Then we go meet Nebula, and we find out what horrible thing is happening in the galaxy now, because that’s just our lives these days. And we’ll fix it, or you’ll fix it with her and we’ll be a cheering squad or whatever, and it’ll be fine. It’s _really_ going to be okay. Right, Coulson?”

“Mhm.” Coulson was still leaning on his hand with his mouth covered. The edges of a grin were peeking out.

“See?”

“Both of you are full of auroch shit, I don’t know how I got to a point in my life where I’ve allowed myself to bossed about by humans, both of whom together are a tenth of my age.” Loki ran both his hands through his hair, starting along his temples. A rare nervous tic, but a comforting one.

“You’d die without us,” said Daisy, cheerfully, hearing the grudging but genuine compliment hidden inside the false insult. “It’s scientific.”

“She’s got a point. Really, for full safety, we should have called up Strange and had him come along, too.”

Loki put his hands down and stared at Coulson, his eyes narrowed in deadly intent. “Not a chance.” He looked at Daisy next. “Regardless, you’re almost getting it. You want to come along as moral support? Very well, I’ve acquiesced. That’s your job as you’ve perfectly outlined it. Don’t interfere, don’t put yourself into danger, don’t jump in front of me if something ridiculous is about to happen. _Please_.” He looked up as the serving boy approached the table with a quick half-bow. “I think we’re set, thank you. My best to Rolaf, your family has always been reliable with their care.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” said the boy, picking up an armload of emptied plates, not fazed for a moment by the oddly-dressed humans and the infamous dark prince of the realms. “Health to the great house of Asgard.”

“And to yours,” said Loki, with automatic formality.

“Do we tip?” whispered Daisy to him as the boy left.

“No, it’s fine. The treasury trucks over a few lumps of Dwarven gold every month to cover the standing bill. It’s the family equivalent of your favorite Chinese delivery, we’re probably paid up into the next millennia.”

“God, it’s amazing bread. I totally get why.”

“It is. Grab the rest before the boy takes it.” Loki rose and gestured to the remnants of the huge loaf that doubled as a centerpiece. “Thor always does.”

. . .

Daisy spun around as the group pushed its way deeper into the busy port, owning her wide-eyed tourista look and knowing she didn’t have anything anyone would want to pickpocket. The spaceport was the newest permanent addition to Asgard, who used to manage most of its transportation via Bifrost and a handful of space-capable vehicles. Loki, veiled for a time as the All-Father, had gotten the idea in his head that a _proper_ channel for tourism and shipping would be useful for a realm that had gotten a shedload more PR around the galaxy in recent years. It was something useful from his ill-thought days of rule, and she knew he was privately quite proud of the initiative.

Odin, after consulting with Loki on his original plans, was currently expanding it.

The port was down a new road that circled out from the city that grew around the great golden palace and through a field that turned into hills that hid the port’s lights at night, for the port itself never slept. It might have been ugly, since it was partially bolted onto the underdark stones that kept Asgard’s small green world aloft. It was not.

Marble inlays and silver details and enchanted gimlet-black grit strong enough to take the brunt of spaceflight engines made up the new series of platforms. The silver grew along its edges, safety rails disguised as eternal ivy and hiding support beams made of rough dwarven godsteel. Warehouses and office buildings were Asgardian in style close to the main entrance portals, but speckled into a wild lack of uniformity just beyond, recalling the chaotic, jewellike interest of other hubworlds like Xandar. There were infoscreens ‘growing’ out of certain silver ivy patches, intel on a permanent scroll to show arrivals and departures, and key galactic news.

Daisy flicked her gaze from screen to screen, a cute blue Xandarian guy seated behind a desk and doing his very best Chris Hayes impersonation as he narrated off whatever a teleprompter was in space. Here in the galaxy, too, what bleeds leads, and he was chasing several stories about space pirating, a blockade deep in the Gamma quad that was hindering medical deliveries, the victories of some glowing humanoid woman, and, now and then, a figure that looked vaguely familiar somehow. She couldn’t put a finger on why. “Hey,” she said, pausing in her stride. “Hey, Loki?”

He glanced back at her from where he was next to Coulson, then at the feeds. He looked unsurprised at the hulking figure that loomed in the back of the fuzzy footage, like a cryptid. Before him thronged scuttling, vicious creatures, a little like half-made, barely sentient Chitauri. Living weapons, obeying only his command. “Cull Obsidian,” said Loki, and there was a frozen note in his voice she didn’t like.

The name meant nothing to her. She watched the footage again, realized what it was. It was the armor she was seeing, bulky and dark and sometimes golden in places. _That_ guy had worn something like it. Thanos. “Uh…”

Loki watched the footage scroll in silence for a minute, seeing the brutal assault on a distant, peaceful world, ripping away its vital resources for their ships and weapons. “It’s what I’m out here for, I expect. He’s on the move. Openly. Nebula will know why.”

“He’s one of the generals. The Order guys.” It was a dumb thing to say. She knew he was. The way Loki was talking was enough to tell her that.

“Yes. According to my scant information, the others used to call him a dwarf, mocking the people of Nidavellir. None of them are so cruel.” He flicked a glance past her, narrowing his brows in tight. “Are you _trying_ to get ripped off?”

“Not really, why?” Half a fib, okay, whatever.

He craned his head around her, frowning. “There was a shadow just now. Watching you.”

“Yeah, the shadow of your paranoia.” Coulson wandered back towards them, his hands in his pockets. “We’re safe here, Loki. Nobody’s gonna rip off a pair of humans, I don’t think our smartphones go for much when everyone else has the latest crystaltech nano implant or whatever.”

Loki looked down at Coulson with a theatrical roll of his eyes.

“Plus it’s still Asgard. Do you put people in the stocks or what? I doubt anybody wants a bunch of hoity-toity god people throwing turnips at them, not over what _we_ have in our pockets.”

“Coulson.”

“I have a few sticks of gum and a box of orange tic-tacs, is that worth getting boo’d at for a half hour like the witch-lady did in _The Princess Bride_?”

“ _Phil_.”

Daisy piped up again. “I still have a wad of royal bread in a napkin. That’s pretty cash.”

“I can pay off literally _anyone_ here and have you both dropped in the middle of Antarctica with just enough to keep you alive until I bother to call someone else to have you picked up, and if you keep going, I will do it.”

“No, you won’t,” sang Daisy, cheerfully.

“Keep trying,” grated Loki.

. . .

The shadow watched the trio resume their push through the afternoon crowd, on time to meet their rendezvous, and felt bemused at their casual friendliness with each other. Loki, in particular, seemed to match nothing of the stories she had once heard. The shadow knew all about their travel plans, and had very little interest in the contents of their pockets. All she wanted was to be certain there was in fact no danger or interference here in the port, for the sake of her partner in this particular little scheme.

She slipped further away from the group, knowing that she’d come close enough to being caught, and tapped the comm hidden by her ear. Her old-style Asgardian accent clipped across the line. “They’re away safe. No one else is following.”

“Good,” said the familiar male voice on the other end of the line. “Any idea yet who’s sponsoring Nebula’s operation?”

“No, Your Highness. It’s… odd that some of it’s going through the same channels we are. I could get that much out of my guy.” She couldn’t shake the feeling that they were all somehow on the same path. “But whoever’s lurking in your brother’s shadow just isn’t someone I can target yet. They’re good. Very good.” Paranoia made that concerning to her, more so than to Thor.

“I thought I knew most of his contacts by now, if not his secrets. But you remain certain he’s not walking into a trap?”

“Not yet, anyway. I pulled back, got his sniffer up earlier than I thought I would. You warned me, and he still spotted a tail. But they look clear to the next jump point.” The shadow knew her limits. She was no spy. Scurrying around like this suited ill. She was vastly better with an open blade, but Thor had made the point that his brother and his friends didn’t know her face at all, which gave her cover none of his other friends had. Useful enough, then. For his sake, she would play at this.

“All right. Meet me at the ship in an hour. I want to be sure we don’t get picked up on any monitors. He’ll be even warier once he gets into deep space, especially with his human friends along for the ride.”

“Your Highness.”

“And go easy on the mead, my good friend. Please. Clear heads prevail.”

“I fight fine in any storm, Prince Thor.” She clicked the comm off, grudgingly allowing that she would have only one drink. For the sake of Asgard, which, by all the damned gods, she supposed she still cared about.

“Fucking Thor,” muttered the last remaining Valkyrie to herself, to this day annoyed at how quickly he’d ingratiated himself to her, there on Sakaar, where he’d gone to nurse his thoughts for a time and wound up faffing abouts in the arena for the sheer hell of it. A good fighter. A _damn_ good one, and one with a proper look towards the future. She respected that, still and despite the role his father had played in a self-imposed exile that, she supposed in a certain way, mimicked the results Hel-fire’d death she’d narrowly avoided. She had been a non-person, and found contentment in that. And now she served, once more. If to a new lord. “Fucking Asgard.”

The Valkyrie slipped away with a final glance at the news. _And to all hells with the enemies of both_.


	3. Here We Go Again

“God, how many sketchy spaceports are in the universe?” Daisy looked at Loki’s broad back and saw the tension ripple along his spine as he input something into his screen. “That’s rhetorical, my dude. But this is a different one, right?” The star it was orbiting looked different, anyway. So did the planetoid on another orbital route, where a mining colony kept to a short ‘annual’ work cycle, returning to the old spaceport apparently every three months or so to route cargo.

“Mm,” he said, watching the response come back almost immediately. “Nebula’s on time. We’re early, turns out. I allowed for incompetent delivery and stumbled on a parcel of useful yokels.” He grunted, mostly to himself. “I should stop calling them that.”

Coulson swiveled in the chair next to him. “Probably be useful.”

“They’re still Badoons. I rarely have a good experience with Badoons.”

“Kinda granted.” Coulson pursed his lips, remembering. There had been a Badoon after him when he’d first gone into space, bulky and reptilian and not easily slowed. It had been a moderately intimidating experience. “Still, these guys have been really on the ball. It’s nice to be bored in space for once.”

Daisy, whose last interstellar jaunt with Loki had involved nearly dying in a stranded vessel, pulled her lips back in a comical grimace of agreement.

“Maybe Asgard’s spaceport is a good influence on people,” Coulson added, not necessarily trying to massage Loki’s ego, but maybe get him pointed in a more cheerful direction.

“That’d be a first. Once again, I’d accomplish something good by pure accident.” Loki sighed and pushed himself away from the computer. “Probably a lesson in that.” He glanced towards the door of their private quarters, hearing the distant stomp of a heavy foot. “That’d be the captain.”

A knock clunked against their door a second later, heavy and booming and actually what passed for polite. It wasn’t Captain Mazyur’s fault everything he did sounded like a cranky Hulk, the lizardman had muscles to spare. Loki pinged the door to let him in. “Hungh,” he grunted at Loki. “We dock in twenty. Good?”

“That’s fine.”

“Arrival early.” Mazyur’s eyes glinted, annoyed at himself for something. He tapped at the translator set next to his throat. What came next was an untranslatable but still understandable curse at technology. He could tell his words were coming out crudely. He flicked a glance at Loki and slurred out a bunch of liquid, elegant words in his own tongue.

Loki blinked and inclined his head politely. “I appreciate the offer, but we’ll be in no danger if we disembark a little early.”

More fluid words.

Loki surprised himself with a smile. “I assure you, it’s fine. My reputation tends to precede me, and it’s an _interesting_ form of armor of late.” He listened to the response with a slight frown. “That’s useful to know.” He half turned to Coulson. “Some of the crew gangs from the mining colony are attempting to start turf wars on the spaceport, jockeying for whatever luxuries the gang bosses can scrape from cargo haulers on the take.”

“So, yet another rough crowd.”

“They keep it to the lower decks. Upper transit should be fine. It’s more politicking, if a crude kind. It won’t involve us directly, but it’s still good to know about.” Loki turned his attention back to Mazyur. “Our contact has a ship of their own, we’ll be transferring to theirs.”

A phrase like a pike dancing up a springtime river. Coulson cocked his head, reminded again that the universe seldom matched expectations, and there was weird beauty to be found everywhere within it. He couldn’t help a grin.

“I have some faith in their abilities, it’ll be a competent vessel.” Loki paused to consider something. “If it would soothe your worries, you and your crew are welcome to join us on departure for a while. We’ll likely remain in the merchant carousel until closer to our meeting time. These two-“ He jutted his thumb at the two humans alongside him. “Are classic rubberneckers. But seeing a group of Badoons with us ought to allow a little pause before trying to entangle us in any trouble.”

The captain laughed, loud and vital. Then he nodded, satisfied.

. . .

“This is a nice trip so far.” Daisy had her arms wrapped around a heavy bolt of thick, wooly fabric the captain had bemusedly bought for her while Loki was elsewhere with Phil, examining mechanical trinkets. “Like, they were super cool about walking around with us, and I’m definitely down with nice Badoons. The captain was a real one.” She gave the fabric a squeeze. It was going to make a terrific blanket when she got home.

“It benefits their reputation as well, and having gone above and beyond, I expect they’re hoping I’ll say something in their favor back on Asgard to further bolster their operations.” Loki shrugged, watching Phil still rummaging through a tub of small ship parts, looking for matches off a list Rocket had given him a while ago. “Which I will, of course. Knowing the game doesn’t mean they didn’t play it well. And as honestly as such men can, really.” He reached over to take the fabric from her, secreting it away magically without being asked.

She shoved her hands back into the pockets of her jacket, palms still a little sweaty from too much cozy warmth. “I’m gonna say it again. It is _really_ nice to go five minutes without disaster out here. Do you think it’ll last?”

Loki chuckled. “Not a hope in Hel.”

“Dangit.”

. . .

After Phil came up empty for more trinkets to soup up his space-capable car, the trio ran out of things to do in the merchant area. As a group, they knew this was when they started to get into trouble if left too long to their own devices, so of course, the first suggestion became to wander down to the arranged meeting point, to wait for Nebula’s arrival.

According to Loki, it was a disused bay in one of the lowest sectors of the spaceport, the sort of dank, smelly place that held the occasional wrecked ship looking for a scavenger and, no doubt more than once, a body that someone didn’t want found until the killer was well out of the sector.

Daisy watched the corridors grow darker and more narrow as they descended through the place, not looking too troubled. “What are the odds that by showing up early we walk into, like, an actual space cartel murder scheduled just before our shady intel drop?”

“Pretty ruddy good, actually.” Loki sounded bored. “Why?”

“Uh, wouldn’t we be in danger?” Her untroubled expression turned into one that was moderately perturbed as they came up to the heavy door that locked off the bay.

“You act blind, turn around, and walk away, unless you’re feeling particularly heroic. Neither possibility is exactly unusual.” He keyed something into the door’s lock.

“Okay, but-“ She almost walked into Phil’s back as he stopped abruptly. The anxiety was almost instantaneous. “Seriously? Is it actually a cartel murder?”

“Not sure yet,” said Coulson, stiffly. “Loki?”

He was stopped in place, too, which did little for Daisy’s confidence. “Hello,” he drawled, in a faux-companionable tone of voice that suggested something entirely the opposite. “I’m afraid we ran a mite early.”

. . .

Nebula didn’t turn around to look at her guests. She kept her cybernetic stare locked on the decently sized group of mostly humanoid men on the other side of a slapped-together low barricade, the sort of ad hoc construction used in cheap films about hostage standoffs and bribery schemes, and the occasional weird Hydra shootout. Apparently it showed up in space, too. Phil Coulson darted a look around the scene, taking it all in, tactically doing the math that came up zippo on anything good, mentally adding the suitable musical score by Ennio Morricone, and decided he wouldn’t clear his throat to try and cut the tension.

There was a lot of tension.

“Backup?” The leader of the men was a huge, off-white figure with a face smooth enough to give his dark eyes a salamander’s gimlet glare. “Not in the contract.”

“Intel handoff, meant to arrive after I paid you, Graff.” Nebula lifted a hand, slow and unarmed, her palm towards them. Her voice was robotically even, but with a tiny grate of annoyance under it. “Nothing to do with the two of us.”

Graff flicked his empty stare towards the newly arrived trio, then back at her.

Nebula turned her head maybe an inch, just enough to give them the side of her too-black eye. Her voice pitched low, knowing it would be overheard. She kept it terse. “Don’t get involved.”

Loki nodded and took a step backwards, his arm out to corral the two humans back into the corridor.

“Now wait a mo,” said Graff, silky now. He stepped towards the barricade between him and Nebula, a grin splitting that too-smooth face. “They’re already here. Be rude to shoo ‘em out, hey?”

Nebula didn’t say anything. One of the other men smacked at a console set into the wall by him.

“Best get all the way in ‘fore the door chops your arses,” said Graff, seconds before Daisy finished her jump into the room. He laughed, unpleasant and gooey sounding. “There, now we’re all cozy.” He turned his stare back onto Nebula. “Boy’s got your courier by now.”

“Pointless extra step.” Nebula grimaced at him, still toneless somehow. “I leave the money on the barricade. You leave the datachip. Could have been simple.”

“Naw.” Graff grinned, a grimace that showed a number of sharp teeth, paradoxically jagged and uneven behind the smooth white lips. “I want to keep the odds on my side.”

Coulson watched Loki, marking him for cues on how to proceed. His friend was watching Nebula, his tension visible but his hands well away from any of his hidden weapons. He saw none of the usual signs of magic about to happen, either. Do nothing, just like the blue robot lady said. At least for now.

“Good for you playing like I told you, though. Shows you can obey orders, wannabe shadow broker.” The man laughed. Nebula didn’t so much as twitch. “Corsig.”

Corsig was one of the other toughs, his skin sometimes flickering with strange dim light. He jerked his head up from the console to look at his boss, showing the tiny horns on his brow. “They’re on their way up. Courier logged in right where the girl said.”

A faint sound from Nebula, not quite a growl. If it carried across the barricade, the leader didn’t bother to react to it. “I don’t lie, and I don’t make mistakes.”

“Hm. We’ll see in a moment, hey? If your courier’s got all the money, then we’re doing well, right? Right.” Another meaningless sharklike grin.

Loki lifted his head, the sounds of some other approach audible to him alone. A second later Nebula heard it, too. Coulson saw the tension deepen across her back, the empty hands looking dangerous somehow. She was a heavily-altered cyborg, he knew that much. Maybe she had a few secrets of her own built into her fingertips.

Graff turned as a filthy door slid open on his side of the split room, rubbing his burly, whitish hands together as another of his men, this one with pitch black skin and red cyber-rod hair, shoved a woman in front of him. She had her head down as she stumbled in, an oddly mundane-looking knapsack slung heavily over the shoulder of a simple leather jacket and nearly unbalancing her. Her hair, long and messy, swung over her face. “Hey!”

“Shut up,” said Graff, glancing back at Nebula. “Corsig, check the bag.”

“It’s all there,” snapped Nebula.

“Said you hired this bitch runt off the catwalks, broker. I’m double-checking for you as well as me. Wouldn’t want to get skimmed, lose face, eh?”

“I only had to hire a courier because _you_ had to make this _difficult_.” Nebula spat the words, not looking at the hired courier as Corsig wrestled the bag off of her. “The money-“

“It’s physical. I wanted physical latiu bars, and you’re smart enough to not mark ‘em, aren’t ya? Smart enough to not get on my bad side. So I’m gonna count how many bars there are.”

“Do you think I shoved one up my narrow ass? I walked here just fine.” snarled the courier, still mostly masked by her own hair and the rumple of her jacket. “Hey, dickhead, my job security relies on not spitting on the packages.”

Coulson, still watching for cues, watched Loki jerk suddenly. He looked up into his friend’s face, saw the eyes widening slightly. Recognition? How could that be? He looked at the courier, saw nothing familiar about her. Dark hair, average height for a human woman, though she really did seem as human as their group. She looked up through the tangle of her hair, reaching up for a moment to push it back. If not do much for its taming.

Loki’s chin raised.

The woman locked eyes with him, and something in her face turned as hard as steel - but only for a microsecond. Coulson caught it. They knew each other, and Loki stayed silent. He turned carefully towards Daisy, slowly, to ask for her opinion, and saw an oddly similar expression on hers. That same recognition. “The hell?” he whispered.

“Dude,” was all she said, and then she shut up at a warning glance from the courier.

“Count it, then,” said Nebula, pulling focus of the situation back to her. She gestured at the heavy bag. “Count it, then give me the data I’m paying you for.”

Graff kept his stare on her as Corsig rummaged through the bag. “Yeah?”

“Clean.”

“Right amount?”

“Aye, boss.”

Graff reached inside the vest he wore, plucked out a tiny plastic sliver. A data stick. He looked at it, then at Nebula. “You’re not too shabs, broker. You follow the bark, you pay the price, you don’t get shady. Can even give the surprise arrival a pass, they’re behaving.”

Nebula watched him, her implanted eyes glittering with distrust.

He put the stick back into his jacket. “Good dog like you, you’ll pay a little more. For the convenience, say. To know you’ve got a seller you don’t want to mess with.”

“That’s not the deal, Graff.” She bit the words off.

“It’s the deal if I say it’s the deal, broker.”

“Come on,” whispered the courier. “Don’t do this.”

“Corsig?” Graff didn’t turn around as his man grabbed the woman by her jacket, dead in the center of her back. He shoved her forward, closer into the knot of other men, milling around. At least nine. All armed, Coulson noted. They weren’t. “She freelance?”

“Walker’s mark on the bag.”

“Broker can eat the insurance, then.” Graff smiled down at Nebula, benign, sharklike fangs peeking out from behind the nothing lips. “Little extra on the table.”

“Graff.” Nebula went quiet.

“Corsig, kill the courier.”

“No, _wait_ , come on, man! I just did the job!” The woman looked wildly back at Corsig as he let go of her jacket. He came up along her side, his hand going to a weapon at his waist. “I’m not part of this, don’t do this!”

“Don’t,” whispered Nebula, stepping back from the barricade. She put her arm out, like Loki had, another divider between his group and their enemy. “Don’t break the deal. You can change your mind. Right now. Last chance.”

“Fuck your deal, broker. We’re going to make a new one.” He tapped at his vest, still grinning. “I’ll call you tomorrow with the terms. Let this settle in a bit. Make sure we’re all on the same page next time we meet.”

“No, no, no, wait!” The courier had her hands up, waving them in increasingly shaky franticness as Corsig brought up a las pistol, unlocking its safety. “You don’t want to do this!”

“Fucking shoot her, mate.” Graff sounded bored now.

“Yeah,” said Corsig. He pushed the gun towards the woman’s face, a faint whine in the air as the weapon heated up. “Bye now-“

The gun fired. The room jerked in different directions as the men realized the shot cut strange through the air - and through Corsig’s disintegrating face. What they saw caught up to their thoughts a second later. The woman’s hands snapping the gun around in Corsig’s grip, turning it, forcing the finger down, and then the remaining hot chunks of the man, limp at her feet.

The courier began to move as time seemed to speed up.


	4. Family Style

Eight men and Graff himself, surrounding a woman not much taller than Daisy. Nebula’s arm stayed up, telling Loki and his human friends to keep out of it. The blue arm didn’t waver as the first man lunged towards the courier, getting a shot high through his forehead for his trouble. The courier’s free hand snapped to her side as the second one approached, pulling him in, using him as a shield when the third took his shot, killing the wrong target.

She drew down on the shooter, one shot. Five left, and Graff, the leader. It had been two seconds since this new start of conflict. Graff was only now turning towards the mess behind him, his face drawing slack.

One man dived for the courier, trying to tumble her to the ground. She locked her leg wide, ate his impact without a waver. Her arm wrapped tight around his neck, dropping him without a glance when the pop of his bones cracked through the air. She shot the next attacker, a bulky Kree, twice in the chest and once in the skull, an optimized kill maneuver for shooters the galaxy over. Four seconds. She reached down and without looking fished a reload chip for the las pistol out of Corsig’s waist, refreshing the weapon as smoothly as if pouring herself a coffee.

“She’s Asgardian,” blurted Phil, realizing something familiar about the way she’d dismantled the body of a man almost half again her size. Three men left in under a minute. Graff broke for the door she’d come in from with a yell.

“Yeah,” said Daisy, sounding hushed and still as if she knew something he didn’t. She watched as one of the remaining men shoved himself between the courier and the fleeing Graff. The woman bent low, socked him in the crotch, then drove her fingers into the soft place above his knee. He began to fall, howling, and she finished up by locking her left arm around his neck. He died as she shot at Graff, blowing the ringleader’s left ankle off its leg entirely.

Graff fell, screaming like a child. Two men left. One tried for Corsig’s console, got as far as hitting a button before she shot him three times in his three different intertwined spines. A distant klaxon went off and the woman swore as she stepped backwards into the assault of the last man standing, grabbing his arm as he tried to wrap himself around her, and pressing it at the wrongest angle humanly possible. He dropped to his knee, his hip hitting the ground next. Then he died, too, a second later.

The courier walked over to the screaming Graff and unceremoniously shoved her hand inside his vest, pulling out the data stick. “You were warned, and more than once,” she told him, not looking as if she cared if he heard her or not. Her voice had lost its dockworker’s easy drawl, gaining an elegant, prim edge to it instead. Like Loki’s accent. “Could have been a nice, simple trade.”

Graff pulled it together enough to try and slap up at her, white fingers that ended in filthy, sharp reaching out to claw at her face. She broke his arm, and then, like many of his men, his neck, too.

The bay went silent after that. The courier walked towards the barricade and casually tossed the stick to Nebula. She tapped at a comm device hidden in the collar of her jacket. “Engines hot. ETA five.”

A chime of acknowledgment came through the device and she turned it off again. She flicked a glance at Loki, still staring at her. “Not yet, Prince.” She looked at Nebula. “Dock four.”

“Their backup’s in dock three. On alert.”

“Yeah.” The woman looked down at the las pistol in her hand, then dropped it with a look of disgust. “That’s all they could afford. Not even a recent model. That’s a niner-jay. I’m bloody lucky I didn’t blow my own hand off.”

“It’s what happens when junkyard children think they have control.” Nebula’s voice turned bitter. “They had a choice.”

“That they did.” The woman turned another quick glance towards Daisy, this time probing. She seemed to let it go for now. “Nebula give you three any advice?”

Coulson spoke up, watching her. “Don’t get involved.”

“Perfect. Stay with that. You’re _guests_ , apparently.” She turned to Nebula. “Rifle’s latched outside in the cub where my escort couldn’t see it. All yours. Stay four steps back. I’ll be moving quick once we’re in Three.”

. . .

The courier kept to her word. From here, the docks were connected, allowing them to be chained together into one massive bay should a ’naught or other capital class vessel require an emergency stop. Two were empty, but she passed into Three and started a jog towards the first person she saw, her voice rising into a shrill cry of feminine dismay. “They’re dead in there! They’re all _dead_ in there!”

The guardsman, obviously one of the late Graff’s companions, jerked towards the crying woman in alarm. She dropped him easily while Nebula started shooting anyone that popped out to see what was going on, never stopping, still leading Loki and the two humans through the long dock despite the lack of cover. The woman dug into her pocket and took out a small cylinder, pressing its lid and then rolling it towards the sound of stomping feet. Smoke billowed out from it a second later, thick and choking, and she jogged to bring up the rear of the group.

“Don’t stop,” said Nebula, marching them through the sudden shrieks of chaos and into the next bay. Four _seemed_ empty, until Coulson realized there was an airlock latched into the wall with a series of lively LEDs dancing along it. She pushed him towards it, looking back towards the woman and the remnants of her next melee. “Don’t play with your food.”

“Wouldn’t waste my time,” she said. She looked back as Nebula took aim at the far door, hitting the wall with her elbow as the airlock scraped slowly open. “Gods, I _told_ her to look for that.”

“It’s fine,” said Nebula, taking the shot as one last brave soul tried to press an attack. He fell back with a surprised yell. “Guests first,” she said, shoving Coulson with little grace into the short umbilical revealed a second later.

The airlock slammed shut behind them, and lights flickered on. Nebula led them through a narrow door and into a wide space.

They were now in the cargo bay of another ship.

“Wait,” said Daisy, almost gurgling it. Coulson looked at her, sharply. Had she gotten shot in the press? No, she was unharmed, looking around with a wild and confused look on her face. “Oh my god, wait, no _way_.”

That new question had to linger a moment. Coulson felt Loki sweep by him, stepping with his usual flair for the dramatic into the center of the bay, his attention fixed on the woman who was now ripping off a leather jacket that had a couple more holes in it than it had started the day with. She looked at a fresh wound burning the back of her left arm, then at Loki, tired and annoyed, as if waiting for something obvious to happen.

“Lady Kara.”

“Your _inimitable_ Highness.”

Loki made a face almost impossible to describe, like a thousand lemon drops had been shoved into his mouth, each one coated with a hundred different obscenities. “Do _not_ call me that.”

She looked at him, wildly unimpressed, then at Daisy with that same probing look she’d had earlier. Nebula wordlessly passed her a small tube of something, and she sprayed it on her wounded arm without looking at it again. “Have we met?”

“I-no! Nope!” Daisy shook her head, her eyes flying wide as Loki turned to give her the rare stare of pure threat. “I just… you seemed Asgardian. It’s the accent. I was right, huh? You… uh… You’re totally from Asgard!”

Kara’s lips pursed, clearly not quite buying it. She glanced at Phil. “I am. And you’re Director Philip J. Coulson. Of SHIELD.”

He put his hands together and bobbed his head at her, amiably. “You’re well informed. Friend of Loki’s?”

She barked a laugh.

“Yeah, that’s a common reaction.”

“Hel are you doing here?” Loki swiveled his head back to Kara’s. “You-“

“I’m what? Supposed to be swanning it up in the Vanaheim countryside with a fancy title and some freshly dyed yarn draped coquettishly over my arm?” It came out deadpan, but she quirked a faint and not entirely hostile smile. “All right, I might do on occasion. But it gets boring in the long term, so I take a few commissions here and there to keep sharp.”

“ _Commissions_.” Loki practically spat the word at her.

“I’m too young to be a retiree. Take it up with your father.” Kara turned away from him, draping the ruined jacket on the back of a bolted-down repairs chair and ignoring the near explosion starting to happen behind her.

“Odin? What does _Odin_ have to do with this? What is going on, how did-“ At this he gestured at Nebula. “Who’s paying who, I-“ He faltered, temporarily out of useful words. “ _Shit_!”

The two women glanced at each other. Nebula’s expression was unreadable bordering on annoyed, while Kara’s continued to hold that faint, amused sparkle. A moment later, Kara started to walk away, towards the entrance to a gangway.

Loki looked around himself, recalibrating, and catching up to what Daisy had immediately noticed. “Hey-“

A tall, broad figure slid down the gangway and blocked Kara’s exit. The new arrival ducked her head to avoid slamming it on the small portal, stepping the rest of the way into the bay. “We’re locked on course, I’ll have us back in the slipspace within a few hours, oh, hey, kiddo. Nice to see you again.”

Daisy gawped up at the huge woman, delighted and shocked into a mess all at once. The mercenary captain. The blockade runner with a heart. “Tam!”

“Yup, that’s me,” said Tam. She looked at Kara. “Fucking hell, you took a shot?”

“They had niner jays, Tam, a fart on the trigger could have accidentally shot me.” She waved the already healing arm at her. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“ _What is going on_?” roared Loki.

“Okay, no, but more calmly, what is going on?” said Coulson, putting his hands up. “I feel like I’m the only one in the room that’s really lost right now.”

Daisy’s mouth opened and closed a few times, still trying to piece things together. “Dude. Tam. Captain. Everett Ross. Dead in space. Her ship. There were these fuzzball guys that were like engineers. She rescued us. She rescued us and we blew up the guys that sold vibranium on Earth together and like… holy _shit_.”

“Did she now?” Loki’s voice had turned cold as he continued to stare at Kara’s back. “I find I have fresh questions.”

Tam put her hand up, sober. “I never lied to you. I swear. On my blood, I swear.”

“She’s telling the truth.” Kara glanced back at him, then gestured at Tam as if to get by.

“How about you, then? What’s Odin got to do with this, how do all of you-“

“Ask. Odin.” Kara didn’t look back.

“Enough!” Nebula slammed her hand on a metal table, hard enough to ricochet the heavy sound throughout the bay. Coulson winced and this, finally, drew Kara’s attention back her way. “You hired me to be your intel advisor. I am _advising_ you. Start talking right now. Quit the games, I don’t care what’s going on. Get back on task.” She pointed at Loki. “Or this one will become our _next_ problem.”

Anger drifted across Kara’s face, clear enough to sit there a moment. Then she folded her arms against herself and shrugged. “You’re right.”

“Since fuck knows you don’t listen to me.”

Kara elbowed Tam in the side for her blurted addendum, looking at the floor of the cargo bay. “He’ll become a pain in all our arses if he gets the chance. You’re right there, too.” She sighed and unfolded her arms, shaking her head. “Fine. The All-Father hired me last year, said you had some powerful enemies looking to take their share. Invoked the name of the Queen. Told me about the remaining Children of Thanos. I’ve been running an intelligence operation since, staying dark.” She glanced back at Tam. “Tam’s a friend.”

“Oh, shit, you’re the hired muscle Tam talked about.” Daisy breathed out the realization.

“That coincidentally wasn’t on board when we were,” finished Loki, his voice still grating with fresh gravel. “May I ask why?”

Kara lifted a finger. “Growing calmer. That’s better, Prince.” A wry smile. “I was on Sakaar, tracing a few curious threads. Trying to find out where the Children were getting their backing. They’ve got a lot of new ships, you see. Plenty of toys to their cause.”

“Sakaar.” Loki gave the name a sour drawl.

“Proxima Midnight’s drawn the Grandmaster himself into her graces.” She stepped towards Loki and began to pace around him, reciting. “See, a few years back, _someone_ meddled with one of his big games, a rigged match between a popular pilot team and a Makluan space dragon. Ran off with a hefty trove of the Grandmaster’s own money. He did _not_ take it well. Proxima told him she could prove who it was. Give him the name he sought. In exchange for sponsoring them against that very person in the future. She, along with another general I’ve still little information on, swayed him rather easily after that. And gave him your name. Accurately, of course.”

Loki stared at her, glitteringly, taking that in. “And Captain Tam.”

“I was on the ground in Sakaar and caught an intercept. The Grandmaster had some hirelings in Earth orbit, running a game of Proxima Midnight’s design. I heard things hit a snag, that it had come to conflict. I got a message out. Tam got into range. The rest is the truth.”

“It is.” Tam looked apologetic, pressing her palms together. “I really _am_ a blockade runner in a family fleet, like I told you, and I really _did_ have to trace your signal to pick you up, and it was still a bloody near thing. The blockade I used to run most was the one around my home. That’s how I got to know Kee, my little wind-sister here. I’ve been her pilot a long time. Auntie Farbie needed to be careful, always. We couldn’t use portal magics to run supplies or info between the queens, or anyone else, really, not safely, so we’d run ships. My mum’s mum actually set it up before the big wedding, shitfest _that_ was. My mum’s our fleet command.” She grimaced. “I’m sorry, little garbled there, but you get the gist. Now we run odd jobs together, Kee and me. Like this one.”

Daisy spoke up. “Auntie Farbie?” She looked at Coulson, mouthing the name again.

Coulson got it, the realization dawning on him with a smile. “Queen Farbauti.”

Daisy whipped her head back towards Tam, Loki seemingly frozen in place next to her. “You’re a _frost giant_ , that’s why you’re so big!”

Tam ran her hands back across her face, peeking out between her fingers a second later with a face turned fresh and bright blue, cheerful red eyes winking at her under a mess of black hair.

“THAT IS _AWESOME_!” Daisy reached out and up to grab her azure-lined wrists, delighted.

Tam snuck a glance at Kara. “I love Earth. _So_ much.”

Kara was rubbing the heel of her thumb between her eyes, suddenly looking tired. “I know you do.”

Then Tam nodded to Loki. “Cousin.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I suppose I should have seen that coming.” Loki sighed.

“I can’t lie to family, not on my honor. I won’t lie to Kara, and I won’t lie to you.”

“And I’d _never_ ask her to. She treated with you fairly.” Kara reached up and put a hand on her friend’s arm. “She helped you out beyond our plan by her own choice.”

“‘Bout gave you a stroke when I told you I did, but hey.”

Kara shook her head with a small smile. “I’m used to it.” She jutted her chin towards Loki. “That’s the high points to now.”

“Barely a competent synopsis, but it’ll do.” Nebula lifted the data stick, gave it a little snap with her fingers. “I need time to decode this. Initial scan verifies that it’s what I asked for, but _I_ need finer details.”

“Of course.” Kara nodded to her. “We’ll be in the slip soon, we’ll get you back online with your network there.”

“And lay low a while.” It came out like a warning purr. “We made a lot of noise at the port. More than I wanted. It’s too soon to draw eyes to us.”

“Agreed.” Kara looked from face to face. “Well. Short of further screaming at each other, I think we’ve some time to rest.” Her smile turned wry. “I gather you lot can find the residence bays just fine.”

“The druffs are currently in the mess hall, just so’s you know.” Tam looked at the one person she didn’t know. “Coulson, yeah? I say that right?”

“Yeah. Good to meet you, by the way.”

“Mutual. Druffs are the fuzzies your young friend mentioned. Don’t freak out when you see them.”

Coulson chuckled, stuffing his hands back into his pockets and feeling like he was slightly firmer footing now. “I appreciate the warning, ma’am, but I’m getting harder to faze every day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry I've gotten so damn intricate with these stories, I apologize if it's annoying or difficult, I blame the brain worms. The Grandmaster heist was told in Darwin's Dragon, and Tam's appearance here is basically a straight sequel to Escape Velocity. I'm honestly excited to bring her back, because that opens the door to a few things I've in mind coming up.


	5. Culls and Cats

Cull Obsidian. He loomed, a statue of himself, broad and muscled and eerily silent, as his crawlers tore apart the colony homesteads in the failing twilight. He’d had his fun, slashing through a crowd of feeble-limbed farmers and the smattering of Nova Corps emergency responders, and now he was content to watch the mayhem, at peace with his work.

It was easy to dismiss him as a thoughtless warrior. He spoke seldom, and often found a quiet grunt worked as well as a word. His sister in arms, Proxima, would call him the black dwarf, a private jest of theirs that went misunderstood by others. A great presence that seemed small and dense, but was as vital to the universe as any other body of potential. Like the cull he chose for his name. Necessary to the health of any world, the burning away of the old to allow the new growth. Oh, but he could burn, controlled and mighty and implacable.

He reacted to the loss of Thanos with his usual stoic silence, just as he’d done when beloved Proxima heard that her mate, Corvus Glaive, had been slain. He was the rock, and he’d held his good sister as she trembled in rage, her mountain, even as those awful whispers later entered her life. But mountains might hide a violence that thrust down into the burning magma, and he’d paid out what he truly felt in his rampages across several pointless little worlds. For Corvus’s pain, and then, much later, for Thanos. A father, a leader, a god. Less a cull then, true, but then, grief was a strange and murderous thing for him.

He felt the thrum of the incoming message and tapped at his arm, grunting once to acknowledge the voice of his sister.

“I see your work blazing across the galaxy, my brother. It is noticed, and the fear is spreading. You do well.”

Cull said nothing, flicking small, hooded eyes out to watch his creatures tear apart a desperate rebellion. The sounds of dying screams would speak for him.

“Ah, Travinta Three. The farming colony, then. I bet with the Maw, he thought you might choose the scholars of Brillin for your bait. But, he has a bias and finds them foolish and narrow-minded and thinks all should share his opinions. Perhaps he should handle them himself. _After_ we’ve lit what signal we need, of course.”

“What word?” It came out of the depths of Cull’s thick chest, rusty and disused.

“Nothing yet.”

“Then I do not do well, sister.” Cull grimaced, deep creases changing the valleys of his face.

“Don’t abuse yourself, my brother. He’s sly and slick, our family traitor. If he’s moved, _when_ he’s moved, we won’t know until he abruptly appears somewhere, and then possibly close to you. _Alive_ , Cull. Squeeze him if you can, until he moves only a little.” Her chuckle filled the air around him, small and dour.

He didn’t ask the typical question, muse on the what ifs. For Cull there were few what ifs worth such trouble. He would claim Loki alive, or fail. And even if he failed, he would serve his sister’s plan well, giving her what she needed to succeed anyway.

Another scream, high and wailing across the field. Good music. Sweet music. His creatures would record it for him and he would toy with the melodies later. It was a hobby, he supposed, though he considered such things to be mostly useless. A luxury. It had taken years for Proxima to convince him that a little secret luxury could train the mind to yet more useful heights, that there was math in such music, and there were great lessons to be learned from pain. A gift of knowledge from her dead mate, shared with her brother. A treasure, then.

Proxima Midnight was wise, more so than Ebony Maw, whose vast intellect often outweighed his sensibility. Cull Obsidian would die for her. He expected he would, eventually. Even if it was for the cause of their strangest sibling of all, so long as Proxima gave the word. This thought gave him no pause. It would be an honor.

“Hunt well, my brother. I look forward to hearing the song of your latest battle.”

“I will send it tonight,” he said, and cut the connection as thick smoke changed the horizon from soft and lovely purples to cruel grey. Only she could share in the symphonies he made of pain. Only his closest sister, whom he loved entirely.

. . .

Nebula didn’t like to fidget. She preferred the economy of action, presenting herself as some sort of wily predator that only moved, only spent energy, when she was about to strike. Unfortunately the habit was burned into her remaining organic scraps, some ghost of an earlier her living eternal in the machine prison, and she fidgeted a _lot_.

The first thing she’d done on retiring to a small hold that she’d remade into a mobile intel command center was use an un-networked system to copy the data stick they’d earned onto a clean crys-card. Standard safety protocol, identify and swipe out any viruses or tracker codes implanted into the dataset. The stick itself, which had in fact carried about a hundred varieties of illegal data-parasites, was now a toy for her fingers to unstoppably fuss with. Her thumb would push it up between her fingers, and then it would dance back down, like an awkward coin trick.

Dimly annoyed with herself, the rest of her mind stayed fixated on the cleaned data itself. Troop movements. Intercepted signals. Unusual supply chains popping up all over a low-security sector. Pieces of a greater picture that needed a lot of analysis before it would click together. She had some of it, and it fed her initial suspicions. Increasingly she was glad she’d put them in her initial report for the women who had hired her to be their brain. It was going to pay off, and the one, Kara, put a lot of value in useful paranoia.

That was something Nebula appreciated. Kara also understood the ways in which having a personal stake in a matter could be a benefit. Too many assumed a bias would blind, and yes, it could.

But Nebula’s glassy, cybernetic eyes were wide fucking open, and her frenzied, still agonized hate for the remnants of Thanos’s war machine had become a knife in her hand, never a blindfold.

Thanos was not dead. She had, finally, made her peace with that, understanding that he would never wake up from his soulless nightmare, that while Death would never take him, he would never, _never_ feel the sunlight on his face again. Never again lead a battle. Never again torture his ‘children’ into becoming his weapons. Gamora had… helped, after that. It was difficult to learn that lesson, that despite what they had been made into, some hidden thing in Gamora had led her to continually reach her hand out to Nebula despite her slapping it away. Until she stopped striking out.

That had been a hard time. But in the end, Nebula understood, if grudgingly, that she had a sister. A real one, and though Gamora wasn’t here with her right now, a single chime on the transceiver and Nebula could hear her voice.

And there was something else. Someone else. The data stick paused its dance as something soft collided with her left leg, then did it again, harder and more insistent.

Nebula pushed her seat back and looked down at the little animal that had adopted her. An odd thing that had been, a long ago contact from Loki, whom she still didn’t quite trust nor understand, with a strange suggestion. He was helping to care for these newborn creatures that had no home, that needed safety, and that would undoubtedly repay the favor as they grew up.

Nebula had to admit the flerkittens had been horribly cute. And one had settled in her arms, choosing her with an undeniable insistence and intelligence. Despite herself, Nebula had offered the name Spirit to the young beast, and the flerken liked it. There was another name, buried somewhere deep in the circuits that forced their way into what remained of her organic brain, a name that hurt to say aloud. She thought it might be the name of her true mother, or maybe a sister. ‘Spirit’ was close to its meaning. Close enough to allow the admittance that she liked the animal’s company.

Close enough that its simplicity might hide the fact that Nebula, despite herself, cared about others.

Spirit, having won her attention, looked up into Nebula’s eyes with half-lidded emerald green ones of her own and began a deep, throaty purr. Spirit had grown into a shaggier kit than some of her siblings, long brown fur along her belly and throat, and a tail that could clear off a whole table. There was a single patch of white along her forehead, a rough oval that started between her eyes, widened at the brow, and tipped again just behind the ears, and that too made her look like she carried a ghost inside her.

And she was _far_ too clever. Loki told her - warned her, really - that flerkens were as intelligent as any humanoid, and sometimes more so, but she’d held quiet doubts until the cat began tapping at her consoles with far too much awareness to be doing it randomly. There were new observation subroutines in her system now, intricate ones, that Nebula hadn’t written.

The strange cat was now her silent partner on the intel gig, and further, damn if she wasn’t _better_ at many of their infiltration jobs, coming out of an undercover-style gig with data sticks carried in her mouth, or buried in her fur, or full-on thefts hidden away in her pocket dimensions. Spirit was a flerken happily attuned to a little light crime, and Nebula had to admit she adored her.

It was a shame Graff had been such a fool. It would have been easier to slip Spirit in, lift the stick, avoid having to kill off a whole band of local toughs to get the intel she had now. But he’d put in a number of hurdles for no purpose but to be a useless, witless asshole, and the amount of men he’d had made it difficult to slip a stray ‘cat’ in. So Plan B went forward, with Kara injected into the system as a disposable courier. Same result. If a little messier.

Spirit jumped up onto the desk, avoiding Nebula’s arm until she shoved her way under it, demanding ear-scritchies, which of course she received. Then she jutted her sharply felid nose towards the screens.

“Yeah. It’s what we figured. Cull’s fielding a full-sized battle camp around and in that sector, and he doesn’t give a damn if people can see what he’s doing. Last chirps said he went into Travinta, heading for the new agri-colony on the furthest world. He’s going to dig in after he pushes them back. Near total wipe, but some survivors. Probably has a fortress set up by the end of the week. Strange. We’d already been there before. I don’t know why one of my… my father’s goons would want to re-sweep it. We never bothered before. Frightened survivors moving into a broken land meant his legend grew. It was good enough for him. Until near the end.”

Spirit tapped at something on the screen and meowed. It flipped over to a reading of energy shifts in that solar system.

“He’s pulling all resources towards him. That’ll feed security, a standby fleet. He’s hunkering down for something, some reason.” Nebula leaned back in her seat, not twitching when Spirit slunk off the desk and balanced herself lightly on her abdomen. The ‘nice’ thing about her cybernetic body. Kitty paws on the places that would be sensitive on a human body didn’t hurt her too much. “I think Kara is right.”

Another questioning meow.

“I know, a trap doesn’t make a lot of sense, but not a lot about Loki makes sense anyway. I think they’re making a play based on something they know about him, maybe even that location, that _we_ don’t understand yet.” She pursed her lips. “And that’s why we ran the game, pulling him on board. Get everything on the table while we still have time to figure out a reaction plan. Though now that he’s here, Kara’s being vague all over again.”

“ _Meowwww_.” A pat on her knee before Spirit reached out and tapped the data field that contained Nebula’s notes on her ship companions.

Nebula snorted. “She’s not a clear read, either, no. But whatever they’ve got together, it’s personal, I think. Well. They’ll push it out of the way, stay focused on the job. If I have to, I’ll talk to her about it. No point in worrying about that.”

Spirit glanced back at her, slit-eyes widening to black and then hiding under the lids in a warning blink. She resettled on Nebula, all four paws wriggling to show discomfort.

“They’re big kids, Spirit. They can take advice.” Nebula caught herself creaking disused muscles into a wry little smile. “Kara’s the boss and Tam’s the captain, but if it hits the fan and any onboard conflict happens, the contract says _I’m_ in charge.”

The flerken did the closest thing in the world a cat can to rolling her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” said Nebula, giving Spirit a pat on her white patch as she reached up for a nuzzle. “I won’t let the power go to my head.”


	6. Paperback Romance

Loki knew Daisy was catching up behind him and slowed to a ragged, tired stop before the door to one of the personal bunks. Tam’s ship wasn’t tiny, but it also wasn’t designed for long trips with more than a couple full cabins worth of onboard crew at a time. The bunks were more or less meant for people to have a little privacy while they napped, if they wanted it. He wanted to shut himself inside one and get his thoughts together, and knew full well this was plain on his face when he turned around to confront her. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Who _is_ she?”

“Literally, did you hear what I just said? It’s not a request. It’s not an opening. It’s not something I want to discuss.” He rubbed a hand over his face, not looking at her, not paying attention to the tone of her voice.

“She was in the Framework-“

“Daisy.” He was already too tired to put the right amount of warning in his voice. It wasn’t her, necessarily. The last hour was an unexpected whirl, one annoying surprise after another, and he loathed such things. Nebula’s invitation wasn’t a trap by any rational measure, but he _felt_ framed up, thrust into something he hadn’t been prepared for, and he was still trying to figure out if he was actually pissed off or merely cast off-balance.

“And I asked Thor about her and-“

“ _You did what_?” It unraveled out of him with an aggravated snarl, a defensive slap at one more unwelcome turn, and for the first time in years, Daisy recoiled away from him with an expression he immediately regretted causing. He tempered his voice for her sake, knowing he wasn’t going to fully succeed, knowing his mouth was immediately going to tear off onto the attack. “At what point did I suggest you ought go ‘round behind my back and prod at matters I made plain weren’t anyone’s business but mine?”

“All I asked him was if he knew anyone by that name, and he did, and-“

He flung a hand, unstoppable. “And what? _And_ _what_? Do you think you’re about to unravel some dark, lost secret? Some riddle that’ll finally make me understandable? By prodding at something I wanted left alone?”

“That’s not what I was trying to do-“

“ _Yes it was_!” He pulled the roar back, falteringly, and closed his eyes to catch a breath. And so he couldn’t see the mix of genuine hurt and surprise on her face. “Daisy. I am sorry to shout. I realize there have been many situations between us where… pulling at threads has opened discussions that ought happen whether or not I wanted them to. That I am not someone that seems open at the best of times. But also… look.” He stumbled for a moment, looking for the right words, ones that couldn’t be shouted. “Not everything is a riddle. Not everything needs to be pricked at, as if it will unlock me. They’re not all grand mysteries. Sometimes things in my life are just things that _happened_.”

“But…” Daisy trailed off, sounding a little hurt but also apologetic. “You’re right, I guess. I’m really sorry. I just… You really freaked out in the Framework. As much as you ever do. You don’t talk about it, which is pretty fair, most of us, it’s not our favorite thing. But like… I don’t know. I wasn’t trying to push your boundaries.”

“Yes you were.” Loki managed to say it with a small smile, no hostility in it this time. “Because I do tend to make my boundaries a recurring issue. You thought you were being kind.” He pushed a hand through his hair, giving up. “What did Thor say?”

“He said there’d been a handmaiden named Kara, with the Queen. That was literally it. I didn’t tell him much about why I asked, and he told me to be careful, because you’d freak on me if he found out I poked around.” Daisy stepped his way again, her arms crossed against her with a theatrical wince. “I should have listened, huh?”

Loki half-leaned, half collapsed against a bunk’s doorframe, shaking his head and knowing he wasn’t going to get that quiet five minutes he desperately needed. “He told you what he would have known. Yes. Kara was one of Frigga’s personal servants. She was at the Queen’s side for a… long time.”

“That is one hell of a servant, dude.”

He managed a chuckle, then sobered. “He wouldn’t have known, Thor. _I_ didn’t know. The Queen wasn’t only Asgard’s heart, she was its wisdom. And in wisdom, she rarely left herself unguarded. Kara was, as I later discovered, one of the last secret lines of defense she placed around herself, a hireling from her own sources in Vanaheim. And one of the _very_ few days she was kept away from the Queen was, because fate is often unkind, Frigga’s final day.”

Daisy didn’t say anything. Her face did it for her.

“Lady Kara did not take what she deemed a failure of her mission particularly well.” Loki paused, considering his phrasing. “If you play this game with her, maybe don’t bring that up.”

“She have as many knives as you?”

“Probably more. She’s no mage, far as I’ve known, but she has plenty of tools to make up the difference.” He arched an eyebrow, bemused. “I… never knew, not while Frigga was alive. I have memories of the serving girls, all of them generally distant.” He knew he was leaving things out, but Daisy would be interminable if he spoke too freely. “She held Odin responsible for the Queen’s death. I won’t belabor why, but she had a certain logic, from her point of view. Unfortunately, when she thought to take revenge on him… well. She damn near might’ve killed me instead.”

Daisy stared at him, then slapped a hand to her face. “Oh jeeze, the you pretending to be Odin thing.”

“She caught me asleep in his quarters. It wasn’t my best hour.” Loki shrugged. “So she held my position hostage, attempting to draw his true location out of me. She gained it, eventually, but by then, her insistence on regicide seems to have faded somewhat.” He flicked a look up at the steel ceiling, close to his head. “And now she takes work from him. Truly, what a decade.”

There was a strange quiet for a moment, and he took a look at Daisy, attempting to figure out what angle she was going to go for next. Loki didn’t like what he saw. He put a hand up, probably futilely. “No. Oh, no, Daisy. Don’t start _that_.”

She reared her head back, looking innocent. “Start what?”

“Oh, my _gods_. Agent Daisy Skye Johnson, not everything is some vomitous romantic novella. There is no tragedy of lost love here.”

“You said she was a handmaiden, and you remember her, and you did that teeny tiny little pause that says you edited a bunch of stuff out on the fly and then she like nearly killed you after popping in on you on some dark woeful night on Asgard, and after that, she pops up in the Framework and looks out for us so we can get out of our personal shitty Matrix sequel, and now she’s suddenly here with your freakin’ secret cousin and a cool cyborg intel agent, and all of them are looking out for your nutty ass, so, my dude, can you _blame_ me?”

Loki had no hope in hell of stopping the groan starting from the blackest depths of his chest and so he didn’t.

“Can a girl dream? C’mon, secret romances with Earth’s reformed villain. The thing with Amora and Lorelei was a great story, you gotta admit I have a chance here.”

“Daisy. I never really knew her. I _certainly_ can’t claim to know her now. We crossed paths briefly, a few times over centuries. Some of it even makes a decent story, yes, and I suppose you can catch me out that I do remember her and that has some trace value. And now she’s decided to show up again. Ask her about that, though I expect the answer’s the same as stated plain - Odin asked her to take this duty to protect, because Frigga would have.” He shrugged, defeated. “Is that enough?”

Daisy looked slightly - but to her credit, _only_ slightly - depressed at the destruction of her Harlequin romance dreams. “You never had a thing for her?”

“Never really had a chance, so not in any meaningful sense.”

“No, like, almost was between you?”

“See first answer.”

“Never kissed her?”

He put a hand over his eyes, the headache coming back strong. “Asgard is not Earth, Daisy, I am begging you, not every glance ends in eternal longing.”

“Oh my god you _did_.”

Loki dropped his hand, about to pray to someone, anyone, to make this stop. Maybe one of the damned Vishanti would spot him a single favor. Agamotto, for the sheer hilarious shit of it. “I am telling you. It doesn’t matter anymore. And if you go to her and try to figure out if she holds some secret adoration of me and that’s why she _actually_ took this job, I would very much like to see you manage to report back to me with all your organs piled in a drippy basket.”

“So… You don’t think there’s any chance?”

“Not much, no.” He glanced at the hall behind her, seeing the shadow of a bulkhead move in the way bulkhead shadows usually didn’t. “Oh gods ruddy damn. Coulson, how much did you hear?”

Phil poked his head around the corner. “I try not to be that guy, but you started yelling. Could hear you from the mess hall. So I got pretty much everything after that point.”

“Fuck.”

“Made the druffs scatter under the table. They’re fine, just startled. They really do look like big black puffballs. Very Ghibli.” Coulson jutted a thumb over his shoulder. “Anyway, rather than chuck any more gasoline on this convo, I just wanted you to know Nebula is calling an intel briefing pretty soon. We also just docked in a thingy, so maybe we want to go see what that looks like.”

“A thingy.” The tiredness came back into Loki’s voice.

“Yeah, this slipspace thingy.”

“Slipspace ports, Coulson, are small personal bases anchored in carefully mathed-out locations between jump gates, off most marked routes and masked by celestial interference, hence, slip. Difficult to get to if you don’t know the route or weren’t quietly stapled to your prey ship’s arse as they pulled up. They’re popular with shadow brokers and the better smuggler outfits. A traveling office.”

“Okay, well, Nebula is going to want us all in her space office in a couple.”

Loki flapped a hand towards Phil. “Lead on, then.”

. . .

Nebula didn’t need to look up to sense the last few arrivals, organizing screens with her rapid cybernetic hands. Her sneer was polite, but still, a very Nebula-branded sneer. “Done with your little dramas?”

“Always good to see you, Nebula, particularly when coming from the front. How’s the kit?” Loki dropped into a seat before the long black digitable with his usual grace and arrogance. The humans flanked him, and Daisy continued to steal glances at the captain and her Asgardian friend seated at the far end.

“Spirit is fine. I expect she would like to see her sibling.” As if prompted, the new flerken jumped silently onto the table, her thick tail curling neatly up and over her back as she gave Loki a gentle ‘I remember you’ sniff.

“Frej didn’t come along for the first leg of the trip, but that doesn’t mean she won’t catch up just for that reason.” Loki nodded politely to the animal, who then wandered over to Daisy and accepted a scratch around the ears. “So. Why all the drama on _your_ part?”

Nebula didn’t grace that with an answer. She continued to arrange her screens until she was good and ready. “Cull Obsidian has forged an encampment in the Triuum. He is ready to be there a very long time. Why _is_ he there?”

“You’re asking me?” Loki arched an eyebrow. “I’m the one here to be briefed.”

“It’s the last piece of the puzzle, and I need it.” Nebula smoothly lifted her head to lock eyes with him. “ _I_ remember the Triuum worlds. Gamora remembers better. What happened to the Travintas. I know you do, too. Why did _he_ go back there?”

Loki went deathly, dangerously still, coldness filling the air for seconds that stretched into a minute, that seemed then to pull into something longer and strained. And then, finally, as Nebula didn’t blink at all, he spat it. “I wouldn’t know.”

“A lie,” said Nebula, without hostility. A machine coldness to counter his. “On brand for you, but unhelpful. This is not a time for our old games, Loki.”

“Why is Travinta familiar?” Phil resettled in his seat, then leaned forward to look at the images that represented the system. Three worlds in a synergistic orbit around a healthy yellow sun. There was an asteroid band around it, a natural meteor net. At an educated guess, it looked like a good place for an intricate array of humanoid societies. “Who lives out here?”

“A complicated question,” said Nebula. “Last week there were a number of colonies rebuilding life on all three worlds. Cull has swept Travinta Three all but clean. A few survivors. The other two worlds and their civilians are currently being permitted to flee.” She didn’t blink as she continued to stare at Loki, she didn’t need to. “That will change if Cull Obsidian sees worth in making them into hostages.”

Loki stayed silent, muscles tensing along his jaw in a way Coulson didn’t like. Phil poked anyway, surgical. “Rebuilding? What happened?”

“We happened,” said Nebula, flatly, still staring at Loki. “ _You_ happened.”

Loki silently pushed himself back from the table, already in a half-twist to rise and walk out the door when Coulson grabbed his wrist. “Let me go, Coulson.” Gentle and quiet, in a terribly deadly way.

“Loki, I don’t think we’re out here for the sort of thing anyone gets to forget about. She says there’s still people out there. For their sake, what happened? What’s this got to do with a General now?”

“I can tell this part,” said Nebula, calm and silky. “I won’t if you will.”

“There was a time, Nebula, where you would have slipped through a vent and put a shiv through my neck while I slept. I can’t help but pause at the idea of any of your mercy.” He half turned back, flicking a glance towards Kara. “No wonder the two of you seem to get along.”

Kara’s expression didn’t change a whit.

“This isn’t about revenge on my part, Loki. This is about survival. For those of us that got away. Us versus them.” Nebula’s voice turned bitter. “I’m not here to drag you through the past because I _enjoy_ it. This is about that past trying to choke us all to death. We need to know why. We need to know why they’re starting with you, if not focused on you. And that starts out here, on a trio of worlds that you killed.”

Loki tore his wrist out of Coulson’s grip, but he didn’t leave. He looked away from all of them. It was Spirit that nudged at his hand with a damp nose, then pawed at the sleeve of his jacket. He didn’t pull away, allowing the catlike forehead to shove its way under his palm. “A diplomat, this one.”

“A thief,” said Nebula. “But she knows how to play her mark.”

True enough, the flerken came away from his hand with Loki’s phone plucked neatly from his pocket, her sharp little fang hooked into its case. She dropped it on the table, simply to prove a point. But she’d done her work well. The chill in the air had broken.

Loki shook his head, sitting back down. His face had changed while he was turned away, thinning out, turning ill in a way Coulson thought was familiar. Like the days Thanos had attacked Earth. “What is there to say? It’s a trio of worlds that once linked their survival to one another through an artful dance of diplomacy. And for Thanos, I put its destruction in motion.” He was staring at the black table. “A few words. The right nudge. The right death. And they destroyed each other. I could say my hands stayed clean, but that’s…”

- _a flash of unwilling memory, pulled along by Thanos himself on its scourged roads. his arm up to its elbow in fresh corpses, drenched wet with lost life, the internal scream of the shattered pieces of his spirit_ -

“Not the truth, is it?” He closed his eyes and let the silence wrap around him for a while, feeling its weight. “Look at who is funding the colony resettlements.”

“I did,” said Nebula, leaning back and interlacing her fingers like a CEO at a board meeting. “Wayout Attuni. A venture corporation with their fingers deep in colony med and ecological support. It’s possibly a shell corp if you look close, but one with all the right galactic operating licenses, so most never will.”

“There’s a little Earth pun buried in there. You won’t get it. What’s the _registration_ name, however? You have to dig a little more for that, and I wager you did.” Loki smiled, unhappy. “I’ll tell you, spare us all the drama. Ophidian Sage.”

Coulson rolled his eyes, literate enough to know his synonyms. “A green snake. Loki-”

Nebula cut him off, sounding surprised. “That’s a multi-billion-credit corporation!”

“Lady Kara, according to your sourcing, how much did I take the Grandmaster for? Do you think it might be enough to seed a business like that?”

Kara didn’t answer. She began to laugh, quiet, her head tilting back on her chair’s rest without any other expression on her face. Tam glanced at her, then at a flicker starting on a corner of the table. She frowned at it.

Nebula looked at Kara, than at Loki again.

“I made some _very_ good investments off that heist, even allowing for what I gave out to Gamora and her odd friends for a job needed doing. I tend to favor the long view, and it usually pays well.” Loki’s voice became unwilling. “There is nothing I can do to change what we… what I did. But I could help to repair the damage. Quietly. I chose to try.” He sighed. “But not quietly enough, apparently. You’re right. Cull deliberately chose his position. Now you can put together a theory why.”

“Punishment. And to remind you of the scars. Get your attention in a damn fine hurry.” Kara reached out and tapped at the screen, adding the data before looking at Tam. “What?”

“Getting a waver on the trans.”

“Probably just a cargo hauler on the nearby jump lane.”

Tam’s face scrunched. “They’re on a schedule, I memorized it off Nebula’s books.” She got up. “I’m going to go check my long range.”

Nebula nodded to her. “We’ll finish-“

The klaxons started before she completed her sentence, and so did Tam. Already half out of her seat, she launched into near-flight, on her way to the cockpit and with Kara instantly in her wake.


	7. Oh, Hi, Mark

“Neb, whatever defenses you had installed, get them online! I don’t have time to detach so we’re just gonna go full-turret if this goes shade.” Tam slapped at the comm with another glance at the datascreen that told her something was incoming, and doing it fast. “Kara-“

“On it.” She pushed her way past Daisy, who’d run to catch up behind them, heading for the ship’s own defensive array.

“You’ve got guns on this thing? We didn’t use them last time.” Daisy gripped the back of Tam’s chair, watching a little dot thingy on the screen become a slightly bigger dot thingy. Nothing was visible outside the cockpit window. Not yet.

“Didn’t have hands I trusted to get them online, didn’t have the firepower to push back on a ship that big. You did better with what you had, and I needed the engines. Though let’s try to not go that far this time. They’re not exactly _big_ guns.” Tam continued to race her hands across her panel, then hit the comm again. “Small corsair, still unknown make and model. Hails not open.”

“I see it,” buzzed Nebula over the comms. “No heat sign on the bow on approach.”

“That’s something,” muttered Tam. “You hot back there, Kara?”

“Coming online now, already triangulated a preliminary lock.”

Loki had appeared, Coulson in tow. Loki didn’t wait for permission, he dropped into the co-pilot’s chair but kept his hands off the controls. “Competitors?”

“Doubt Nebula’s that careless. Someone marked us from the port when we banged around the pots and pans a wee bit too much, only thing that makes sense. Could be Graff’s former boys, could be something else.” Tam finished what she was doing. “Neb, I’ve layered our shields onto yours.”

“I saw a shadow at Asgard’s port.” Loki studied the data coming in from the preliminary scans, ignoring the waver in space as the new ship prepared to drop on them out of jump. “Following us.”

“Be a good trick if they tagged on that far. Kara, you hear that?”

“Possible Midnight put a tail out that early, she’s canny enough. Doesn’t make sense making a drop like this, though. Too random. Not enough positional benefit.”

“Agreed,” said Nebula. “Graff had someone he answered to.”

Tam nodded, knowing that couldn’t be heard. “Okay, so we have some suspects. Approach final in three… two…”

The unknown corsair abruptly dumped itself into space, filling the cockpit view and setting off a new round of imminent collision klaxons. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” yelled Tam, thrusting back on her seat on instinct at the sight of the ship’s long white steel belly from what felt like inches away. “I can’t detach, lock’s open!”

“It’s pulling around, kill those damn sirens.” Nebula sounded surly. “It’s a Shi’ar corsair. Kara, updating lock with tactical information.”

“Got it.” The whine of heating guns as she clicked off her mic again.

Tam glanced at her console as the klaxons wound down. “We’ve got full target lock across the board. Still coming around. Five seconds until they can establish counter lock. Four. Three…”

The ship finished its emergency curve, pulling itself equal to the slipspace port, as if regarding it in silence.

“Still no heat,” said Nebula.

“Fuck are they doing?” muttered Tam.

Kara’s mic clicked back on. “The Hel are they doing?”

“I’m getting a read.” Nebula paused. “They’re hailing me.”

“Weapons?”

“They’re still cold. I’m taking the call.” Nebula clicked out.

Tam glanced to her side, catching Loki’s look and giving a slight shrug.

“Are we okay? I am _totally_ good with not getting into a spaceship gunfight twice in a year.” Daisy’s fingers were still gripping Tam’s seat.

“Twice a year? Kit, this is just a normal workweek.” Tam glanced up at the young woman with a straight face. “I’m only mostly kidding. Partially kidding?”

Daisy looked unimpressed.

“Yeah, alright, we stay frisky out here.”

“We know anyone with a corsair like that?” Coulson leaned on the back of Loki’s borrowed seat, talking to the back of his head.

Loki shook his head. “Shi’ar corsairs do well on the secondary market. Pirate vehicles. Privateers. Finding a serial number on one of them if it’s not on official Shi’ar business is like finding a tick on a gigantoboar’s ass, simply won’t happen.”

The link between the ship and the port clicked back to life. “Get up here, second bay. We’re taking on guests.” Nebula sounded righteously pissed off.

“Can a very tired bitch get a warning?” Loki slumped in his seat. “What is it, what _now_? Proxima herself? Creditors? Someone take a wrong turn? Give us a hint, for the love of golden apples.”

“It’s your brother,” snapped Nebula, with zero humor in her voice for his irreverent pettiness, and she cut off the line.

Loki watched the ship come in again, slow and steady, heading for the other side of a tiny structure floating along in the darkness of space. The single word pulled out of him with snappy exhaustion. “ _Fuck_.”

. . .

It wasn’t Thor they saw first. It was his companion.

“That’s the shadow I saw on Asgard!” blurted Daisy. She frowned, reassessing. “Well, she wasn’t a shadow then, but you get my meaning.”

The woman grimaced, the expression rippling through her dark face and its helm of braided black hair and loose ringlets, and then became one of mixed distrust and cautious dislike. She wore dark blues and silvers, and there was a blade strapped at her hip. She kept an eye on them, and her hand stayed near the sword’s scabbard.

Thor practically bounded into the station from behind her, a hand up before anyone could start yelling at him. “I can explain!”

“Nearly shot your ass off on approach,” said Nebula, as surly as ever. “Might want to get to it.”

“We saw that. Bryn was already figuring out how to ditch target lock if you guys got too nervous. Bryn-ah, this is Bryn, Brynnhilde-“ Thor gestured to the woman, who flicked a glance at each of them with a look of cold assessment. “Yeah, she’s a Valkyrie. We met on Sakaar, while back.”

“A _Valkyrie_.” Loki arched an eyebrow, doing his best to not sound as surprised as he was. Near him, Kara frowned, as if something had finally clicked together. “All dead, I thought. Sent to their terrible fate on the ravaged fields of Helheim, yet another grand act of tactical mastery from our father.”

That unwavering look on Bryn’s face shifted back towards him, reassessing. What it came up this time with remained hidden. “You disagree with his command?”

Loki eyed her and the sword at her hip, mentally scanning what he knew from books and deciding it would be best to walk carefully here. An interesting friend to discover in the ass-end of space. That was Thor for you. “Well, he made it ‘fore I was born and and the situation was apparently quite desperate, but I’ve a history of being disagreeable and only recently found out that bit of our royal past, so I’d be understanding if you weren’t particularly thrilled with it. Especially of late.”

The Valkyrie flicked a glance past him, towards the women ostensibly on his side of the port’s arrival bay, and that expression never changed. He thought he sensed a rising chill, and hoped it was simply that overabundance of caution that books said came with the long-lost clan of warriors.

Their destruction, their lives tossed away like that, to buy Asgard time to survive its brutal princess and would-be Queen of Death. No wonder, it occurred to him, that Odin had felt an almost rude aversion to women like Sif who might rebuild the sisterhood, given a chance. Knowing what he’d done. Not all masculine cruelty or disbelief on his part, but a crude and misguided way of protecting his subjects from another horrific choice he might one day have to make.

Still, there were other things to focus on, and the irritation came flickering back. “Well, introductions are all very nice, but Thor, what in Surtur’s flaming balls are you doing here?”

A wince crossed that broad and handsome face at the phrasing. “I want in.”

“On what?” He suspected he knew, and the headache was coming back strong.

“Whatever the hel is going on here. Whatever madness these Generals are up to, what harm they would give you, brother, and any survivor of Thanos’s regime.”

Nebula crossed her arms against herself, freshly pissed. Of course she had a full range of emotions available to her, she might be happy to explain, but recent matters meant she felt like she was continually stuck between grumpy and ‘honestly, fuck all of you.’ Right now it was most heartily the latter. “We weren’t looking to hire a whole damn army to deal with this.”

The Valkyrie didn’t turn her head. “I’ll take the compliment.” She didn’t react to the unamused grunt. “And a beer, if you’ve got some. It’s been a long flight in dry silence.”

“Yep,” muttered Daisy. “She’s Asgardian.”

Loki elbowed her, gently. The Valkyrie was still an unknown and dangerous quality. “I appreciate the concern, Thor, but-“

Thor somehow cut him off with the simple act of crossing the bay towards him. A moment later and his brother’s hands had gently gripped his forearms. “But you’ll never feel you’ve got the right to ask for help, even if you need it.”

Phil chirped up. “I said pretty much the same thing.”

“ _Coulson_.” Loki looked into his brothers face, reticence pulling his own features tight. “I don’t even know what the shape of this danger is, yet. I’ve its name, and little more. You arrive as we’re to find out.”

“Then I’m right on time!” Thor all but sang it, undeterred. Then he turned serious, his voice coming in low and meant for the two brothers alone. “Despite all, you’ve sided with the family. Fought alongside, even saved _me_ , when you rightfully had loyalties and need elsewhere. I want to help. Bryn can help me do that. No more of these warlords and their tortures, Loki. Let us help you this time.”

He tried to not wince, feeling his skin trying to pale anyway and admit it all. Thor would never willingly invoke old pains, but everything had come too close to the surface now. He realized he was looking away, not in shame, but in some faint attempt to hide.

Nebula still stood, but she shoved her back hard against a panel of wall, making it thunk. “The point I was trying to make was that fewer numbers are better. That’s the heart of the plan. Why I summoned him out here.”

“Why?” Bryn glanced at her.

“This isn’t actually a standup fight. Cull’s just bait, Proxima Midnight’s bait.” Nebula had returned to her clinical monotone, the intel broker at her job. “The goal is to see just how weak Loki might be, and expose him. See who’s willing to defend him, then strip those defenses away.”

“They want the stones,” said Loki, feeling cold. “That’s the core of this, isn’t it? They know the only way they’ll get at those damned things again is by getting to me.” He shook his head. “It will never happen.”

“Thanos’s children have always had a way of changing nevers into inevitability,” said Nebula, an undertone of pain in her voice.

Loki pulled his arms out of Thor’s grip. “I’ll die first,” he said, cold enough to cut the air. “ _That’s_ a promise.”

“Well, let’s not let the generals get that far.” Coulson looked around the room. “There’s still less than a dozen of us on this right now. We listen to Nebula, see what she’s got pieced together, then we figure out how to take apart the trap without giving them what they want. I’m sure there’s ways we can all contribute.”

“Another diplomat,” said Kara, amused without condescension. The Valkyrie looked at her, narrowing her eyes slightly at the sound of another Asgardian accent, assessing her. “That will become useful in a hurry.”

“I’ve got a little experience defusing situations around Loki.” Coulson looked over to her. “I can do logistics.”

“Just a little experience,” grated Loki.

“Maybe a lot.”

“Fine.” Nebula shook her head. “Whatever. I need to crunch a few new numbers, think this through yet again. Break it up, meet me back in the office in twenty. We’ll resume at where I was getting to, _before_ our latest guests decided to show up.”

She stormed off, leaving everyone to look at each other with various shades of uneasiness or confusion.


	8. THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTINGGGGGG

Lady Kara saw Tam back off to the cockpit of her ship, then took a moment for herself in the temporarily empty bay of Nebula’s port. She ran the butt of her hand across her forehead, as if pushing away the headache. It didn’t work, and Tam was out of barkchew. Maybe the humans had some of their version of aspirin on hand. Humans often did, in her experience.

She sensed the arrival only a second before the sound hit, a shift in the still spaceport air. Then the familiar noise of a swig off a bottle. “Hail, Valkyrie of Asgard,” she said politely.

“And how’s an assassin get so close to princes?”

Kara turned around, saw Bryn with a beer in one hand and that beautiful silver-white sword in the other. “By being retired, these days.”

“Your kind don’t retire.”

“It’s the truth,” said Kara, keeping her eye on the naked blade. Bryn wasn’t being directly hostile, but she _was_ being cautious in a way Kara knew from the legends. She was being tested, and by one who _knew_ about Vanaheim’s quieter servants. “I served the Queen. Now I serve freely, unbound by the old contract, but choose to retain my service to the great house.”

Bryn stepped closer, close enough to let the blade’s length reach her, if she lifted her arm. Kara felt annoyance prickle at the back of her neck, a dangerous thing on her part. She tried to quell it. “The old jarls of Vanaheim might put one of theirs in the royal house, but not like that.”

“The Queen was pragmatic, more than most. Better one of us at her side than put elsewhere.”

The blade lifted an inch. Kara was bad at certain kinds of tests, and now long away from the days where patience was necessary to play a handmaiden’s quieter life, she found she was bad at that, too. “Keep the blade out of my face, if you please.”

It lifted up, pointing at her cheek. Kara slapped at it. Bryn remained stoic, and the beer in her hand never jiggled off a stray drop from its lip. The blade lifted up again. “Your kind. Don’t retire.”

Kara slapped at the blade again, feeling her face turn hot. It wasn’t wise of her, but she was becoming increasingly pissy. Any plan surrounding the black prince of Asgard, however simple or ornate, went to shit quickly, that was a given, but she was upset at how very out of whack things had gotten. Two humans along for the ride, and now both princes, and with them a figure out of legend - swigging a beer, to be sure - and all of it up in her face.

It was good, Kara thought vaguely, that she and Tam had brought in Nebula as a neutral contact and intel agent. _Someone_ was going to have to be the brains around here. And in a minute, as the blade came back up to prod at her, it wasn’t going to be her. “I said what I _fucking_ said.” Another swat.

The blade began to come back before even hitting the bottom of its arc and Kara found herself thoughtlessly grabbing for its hilt, irritation rolling in a hot storm. For her trouble, she got popped in the face with knuckles wrapped around a thick beer bottle, but she hung on to the hilt. She ignored the stars filling the sky inside her brain, flickering fast. “Out. Of my face.”

With strength greater than hers, that godsdamn blade started to come back up yet bloody again. Kara blinked away the last punch and continued to struggle the blade away, taking another sock to the face for her trouble. “Just… put the blade down!” She was only dimly aware she had started shouting.

Another punch. The Valkyrie took a chug off her beer as Kara staggered, her hands still wrapped around the hilt of the blade. “Never a stand-up fight from your type,” she said, wiping a trace of liquid off her upper lip. “What’s the truth?”

“I’m…” She struggled, a very great many number of stars now, swirling into constellations she’d never dreamed of, and the shout rattled her brains like a thunderclap. “Retired!”

Bryn shook the blade, trying to get her off of it, and Kara took a chance to wrap herself in harder. The woman wasn’t trying to kill her, sure, but now Kara was fully pissed off, the headache was merrily on its way to becoming a concussion, and by Gods, certain points were worth fighting for. She managed to wrap her whole hand around the handle of the sword, taking another pop between the eyes for her trouble.

The stars went away, the sky threatening to turn dark and cloudy, but Kara held the fuck on, using her entire sagging weight to finally drag that damn sword out of the Valkyrie’s hand. She barely felt her body hit the ground.

“ _What the Hel is going on here?!_ ”

“Tell her,” Kara gurgled, the sword wrapped against her chest like a plush toy. Oh god, everything hurt.

The dim outline of the Valkyrie swaggered, facing Loki, half hung out of one of the gangway ports. Kara couldn’t read his face through the fog. “She claims, Highness, to be an _ex_ -assassin.”

“She is!” Loki snapped the words. Kara felt a trace of wind pass her, the familiar smell of an old friend. Tam’s hands shoved under her shoulders, pulling her up a little, keeping her from passing out. It felt like her eyes were swelling. “I paid off her contract myself, with a king’s treasury and a king’s oath behind my pen.”

“Oh!” The Valkyrie pulled her beer in towards herself, sounding honestly surprised. “Well, I’ll be dipped in auroch shit.”

“Told you,” gurgled Kara. “Over’n’over.” Oh fuck, her _skull_.

“Kara, _why_ did you try to fight a Valkyrie?” Tam was petting her hair like she was a direwolf cub. There was a black spot out of the corner of her eye, and Kara wondered if that was her entire eyeball going dark. A moment later and she figured it out. It was a druff, with some of the emergency med tonic Tam kept aboard. Tam poured it down her throat. It tasted as if an orange had a dirty asshole that had just been wiped with some mint paste.

“Didn’t. Wanted sword out of…myfasse.” Was her tongue swelling? Could that happen? Gods, hopefully that would pass quickly. “She can punshce. Good godsche can she fahkin punsche.”

“Been fighting longer’n you and both princes have been alive. Good grip on you, though.” Bryn’s tone had already changed. A golden object filled her view, confusing Kara. It was the beer. “Trade you.”

Kara fumbled the blade around in her grip, turning it to offer the handle politely back up to the Valkyrie. “‘K.”

Bryn pushed the beer into her hand as she took her sword back and sheathed it. Kara nursed at the beer, painfully aware of every scratch in her mouth. “No hard feelings, then?” asked Bryn, every ounce of distrust and hostility gone from her posture and tone.

Her tongue was already starting to behave again. One of Tam’s brothers was in med, he mixed his trade with his family’s shaman remedies and he passed out some damn good pots to the family. It wasn’t the first time Kara had slugged down one of his brews, although this hadn’t been the tastiest of those experiments. The beer was a solid upgrade. “Apologies all around, maybe. I sort of started it.”

“So did I. Knew what I was doing with the sword.” Bryn’s hand came down, reaching for hers. Carefully, knowing something about the grip strength there, Kara took it and got a friendly shake. Then Bryn pulled her upright, holding her until Tam was straightened up and the bay floor had stopped doing that oceanic thing it wasn’t actually doing. “Apologies, then. No more tests and prodding around for reactions.” She looked askance at Loki. “Curious friends you keep, Highness.”

Loki nearly exploded. “It was my brother who dug up an extinct Valkyrie!”

Bryn grinned with all her teeth, then shrugged it off. She turned to Kara and Tam again. “Right, then. Originally was going to say that Nebula wanted us up.”

“Could have opened with that.”

“Could’ve. Didn’t. Oh well.” Bryn opened a hand, asking for the beer back with that same dry and now much friendlier grin. Kara gave it over. “She’s got a whole fridge of these up there. Let’s grab some more before she starts talking.”

. . .

Nebula stared at the bruise already healing on Kara’s forehead. “I’m not going to ask.”

Kara fell into a chair, one of the Valkyrie’s newly stolen brews in her hand while Bryn sat down next to the already waiting Thor. “Yeah, don’t.” She gestured at the data desk. “Where were we?”

“Changing plans on the fly since we’re now deeper in the shit.” Nebula braced her elbows on the table and interlaced her fingers, giving her a chin a place to rest. “The play was originally simple. Cause a little bad blood all around, but balanced with the likely outcome. The whole point was to choke off Proxima Midnight’s big chance at gaining useful intelligence.”

“I’m not going to like this.” Loki frowned, leaning on the wall behind Phil.

“No. You’re not.” Nebula shot him a glance before continuing. “We wanted to get you off the board for a while.”

Something jumped in Loki’s jaw, something dangerous lighting up in his eyes. “So. This _was_ a trap.”

“Not in the way you immediately assume. Just to delay you. Get you informed on our timetable. Keep you from your own sources that we estimated were maybe four more days out on giving you the details on what Cull was doing and where.”

“He’s been on the newsfeeds,” said Phil. “It wasn’t that secret.”

“No, but Rocket and Gamora were collating a lot more information than that. I’ve intercepted what they have, and I’ve got more of my own. The likelihood was that Loki would get his report from Rocket and then enter the fray about a week from yesterday. At that point, Cull Obsidian would be fully prepared and dug in for whatever counterplay Loki would put together - and even if Cull failed, the colony is going to be wired up to send every millisecond of the conflict out to Proxima. Win or lose, she’d gets what she wants.”

Loki’s annoyed expression turned to disbelief.

“We’ve been running psych profile simulations through a Kree super-AI copy Nebula stole off the market, try to get a tactical response together,” Kara explained. “On the generals, and on you. They match what most of us know. The risk is, the Generals might think they know even better.”

“Corvus Glaive kept copies of his… work.” Nebula licked her lips, pointedly not noticing the way Loki’s face went a shade whiter. “I don’t have them. They were taken from Sanctuary well before we tore it apart. I suspect they’re with the Maw. The good news is, they’re out of date. So everyone’s working from what they think they know.” She arched an eyebrow. “But _I_ could get you out here and find out the missing bits. So that’s where we meant to start.”

“And what about what they’re doing to what remains of the Triuum? What are we supposed to do about that? Let him grow bored?”

Kara shook her head. “He’s going to dig in for the long haul, or worst case, he’s likely got a secondary target in mind that we haven’t pinpointed yet. So. He gets his, but quietly. Surgically.”

“You’re not a field fighter, Lady Kara. I can’t imagine even a surgical strike has the privacy you prefer.”

“It will if we can draw him out. The problem right now is we don’t have a way to do that.”

“Yes,” said Loki, gravelly. “You do.”

“ _Kind of_ counterproductive,” said Tam with a grimace. She put up a hand before he finished pushing back from the wall. “All right, before we start screaming at each other.” She pointed at Coulson. “You. Moderate the table.” He blinked at her. “You already volunteered.”

“That’s true, I did.” Phil pulled in closer to the table, thinking fast, putting himself in Director mode and realizing he was happy to. “We’ve been talking at angles. Thor and Bryn are also still behind. I’m going to put it in single sentences, get everyone on the same page. The Generals have been building towards their play since Thanos was taken out. You think they have a plan that needs the Infinity Stones, because of course they do. That means the Generals need Loki. They wanted to draw him out and see who’s on his side, so they could peel him out and use him, alive. You got to him first, while also mapping out their trap so you can neutralize it.”

He kept going. “The Generals don’t know that he’s already in play and aware of the trap. They’re still on track. We’re going to adapt. Now. You were hoping to slow Loki down before he got involved in the Triuum offensive on his terms. But we showed up with him, then Thor and his friend showed up, and now everything’s on the table. That’s a day with Loki, tough. Let’s move to the action phase.

“All goals remain the same. We now know we’re in an open offensive with the Generals. Cull Obsidian has to be stopped, preferably before he winds up his Plan B, preferably before he completely wastes the Triuum. Loki has to be kept out of their hands. The other generals need to be dealt with - that’s future planning, let’s table that for the moment. Right now, we gotta focus on Cull, and blocking Proxima’s intel operation.” He frowned. “Loki, I’m sorry. At least at first, I agree with Nebula. That means you sit tight while we get the next moves figured out.”

“Every moment we sit, the general will kill more.” Loki licked his lips, still paler than usual. “I am disinclined to put that on my conscience, trade any more lives for my own.”

“You’re the direct target, and getting to you may mean a lot _more_ lives will be endangered. I understand how you feel, it sucks, but that’s the game they set up. That means you’re out. We can’t risk putting their goal in front of them without a plan of our own. That’s my call, and I think that’s where Nebula started with her first plan.”

Nebula nodded.

“Fuck,” Loki said, tonelessly. Thor reached out to put his hand on his arm, caught open air as Loki swept through the room and dropped without his usual grace into the chair next to Nebula. He began pulling through the data himself, without protest. He worked in silence for a minute. “Any information on their backup plan, anything at all?”

“Not yet,” said Nebula. “No movement from other observable quarters.”

“There’s a wild card, too,” said Kara. “There’s another General that we know almost nothing about.”

“Nothing?” Loki swiveled in his seat to look at her. “From you, that’s dire news.”

Kara swept through the data at her edge of the table and brought up the few scans she had. A beautiful, marble-white female figure dressed in tight blacks. “These are from Sakaar. She arrived with Proxima to pressure the Grandmaster into their scheme. I know what Proxima did to get him aboard. _She’s_ a null point in space. There’s nothing there. When she moves, there’s only a shadow to say she ever was. I did get a code name, though. The Swan.”

Loki studied the mural of images with a frown. “I’ve never seen her before.”

“Nor I,” said Nebula, settling back in her chair. “Nor Gamora. That’s a problem. We don’t know her place in the new operations, which could mean anything. Anything at all.”

Loki copied Kara’s data on the Swan and added it to the file he was setting up for himself. “Very well. You’re not shuffling me off to exile, and no more cages. I’ll assist Nebula with intelligence for now - don’t look at me like that, you’ll want me doing _something_ or I’ll be worse.” He added a quick spatter of notes to himself. “Do we have military-grade intel on Cull’s fortifications yet?”

“Tomorrow. Gamora’s getting it for us. What I received today was half of what I need. Logistics, delivery movements, ship logs. She’s got a probe in the region.”

“I’d like a copy of the files you have on each General, please. I’ve notes I can add to the Maw’s for future reference. He ran an observation op on Earth, sorcerous in nature. It’s been demolished, I doubt he took it well.” Loki ran through the data he had so far, thinking. “Thor.”

“Brother.”

“Since you’re here, can it be assumed you’re fully in?”

Thor shrugged. “Of course.” He looked to the Valkyrie. “And you?”

“Naturally,” said Bryn.

“You came here in an unmarked corsair, that’s going to give you a freedom to scout that no one else here has. Nebula, do we still have that old course Sanctuary plotted in the asteroid ring around the Triuum?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We can use that to map a new one, keep them off radar if possible. If they get spotted, they’re nosy pirates. Meanwhile, we can verify Gamora’s information fast, and adapt quickly to whatever they’re doing.”

Nebula stared at Kara in disbelief, annoyed at how quickly their operation was being overrun. She shrugged back, her headache still present and accounted for, and now, both metaphorically and literally, nattily attired in full blacks.

“The game is to stop Cull with the smallest amount of identifiable resources. First we need to know exactly what resources are available, then begin from there.” Loki stopped himself, becoming oddly quiet. He didn’t look up.

“There’s going to be more than you think,” said Coulson. “Us. Rocket’s crew. We’ve got people and equipment back home we can task if we gotta. Stephen Strange, Wong, and the Sanctums. Asgard. The Avengers. A bunch of space cats.”

“Jotunheim,” added Tam, kindly.

Loki remained silent.

“I told you,” said Phil. “You’re not going to have to take this on alone.”

He began to nod, slowly, still a little too pale. “Thank you,” was all he could manage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> but not for long, to finish the chapter title.
> 
> forgive me the joke titles, I am very tired and the world is being very much for everyone lately.


	9. Thanks I Hate It

Flerkens do things at their own pace and for their own purposes, so the fact that Spirit was in the bay to watch Thor and the Valkyrie depart on their scouting mission was purely a coincidental matter. She accepted a good petting from the big man, because one should never turn down a petting, and even offered him some tummy. It was a trap, of course, and she wrapped herself around his hand and did her best to get her claws into the top layer of his skin. Just for practice, to say that she could do it to the best of their kind.

The big man laughed it off and she didn’t get more than a few already scraped flakes of tough Asgardian flesh under her claws, and then she slid by Bryn’s legs on her way to get on with her actual business. A guest of her own.

The bay was empty after the pair launched their corsair. And then, abruptly, it was not. A wet sound faded away, the dimensional portal neatly tucked back into a furry little tum.

Spirit trotted up to her sibling and bonked her noggin into Frej’s, rubbing first along one side of her sister’s face and then making sure they slammed their whole bodies into each other for a proper greeting. Frej followed up the ritual with a good lick of the white spot on her forehead, purring throatily.

_Eggmate_! Spirit purred back. _Are you a sorceress yet?_

_Not by my Loki’s reckoning. I can do a few things well and a few things passably so far._ Frej dropped onto her butt and began delicately licking her paw for emphasis. The paw glowed, a taste of showing off. _I will of course defer to his training and wisdom because this is new flerken understanding. Nothing in the nest-link can so much as imitate it._

_I have seen the warp-weave in the dreamtime. It is new, and pretty, and it only twitches with your tail. This is all very good. I’m happy for you!_

_And you? Are you my superspy egg-sister?_

_I am._ Spirit preened, stretching out her furry neck for emphasis. _My Nebula begins to understand, and she encourages. So I am especially glad you came to visit._

_Not much of a visit, a necessity. My Loki, I can sense he is imbalanced. I wanted to check on him._ A wrinkle of that fine little nose.

_The briefing causes ripples._ Spirit meowed, looking around to be sure they were unobserved. A habit, earned from her partner. No one she had yet met understood the way flerkens ‘talked’ to one another, through sound and body and a trace of gentle mental language. Still, it might be useful someday to take care wherever she could. _He takes some news ill._

_I’ll go to him soon. But you have something in mind?_

_I do._

Frej patted her front paws on the steel of the bay in turn, thoughtful. She might not get to her Loki’s side after all, depending on what she heard next. Then she got up to sit close to her sister, curling her long black tail along her sister’s much furrier one. Eager partners in some new crime. _My ears twitch to hear it_.

. . .

Phil Coulson put a hand to his forehead, forcibly willing the momentary bout of wooziness to go away. It wasn’t much to worry about, just a few seconds of something like a painless aura migraine that messed with his balance, and it only happened every several days or so. It didn’t interfere with him, so he didn’t focus on it. He was more concerned with the way the color never returned to Loki’s face, not even after he’d taken a copy of Nebula’s files to one of the small passenger bays to study in private.

Loki was the one hiding a real ailment right now, not him. The man had refused to deal with the aftereffects of trauma for the better part of a decade, and today was probably not the day he finally would buckle down and deal. Plus, Phil knew he was no therapist. But at least he could get through a closed door. First, by knocking on it.

“Daisy, I swear-“

“It’s Coulson.” Already the jig was up. Loki _never_ guessed wrong. The portent of his mistake hung in the air, a neon lit sign over a mental emergency room saying No Vacancy. “I’m coming in.”

The door wasn’t locked, opening easily at a touch of the entry pad. Loki didn’t budge and he didn’t look up when Phil poked his head in, seated on a narrow but comfortable enough bunk with a flexible datapad in his hand. He still looked more pale than usual, drawn in a way Coulson usually saw in people with a rip roaring case of food poisoning. The data wasn’t scrolling. Coulson honestly wasn’t even sure the datapad was turned on. “So, you could be doing better.”

A single black eyebrow quirked, his expression ironic and dour both. “I’ve known this was coming for a while, now.”

“And it’s still giving you a donkey-kick right in the kidney.”

“Humans are downright lyrical when they choose, aren’t they?” Loki lifted his gaze just enough to stare at the wall next to Phil. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“But you’re not alone.”

“To be honest, Coulson, that’s rather getting me sharp in the other kidney. It’s unsettling.” Loki gave up and put the pad to his side. “And I don’t need any more losses to my name. I should have left you both on Earth, and the _moment_ I’d gotten a whiff of the plan, I should have gone away to deal with the issue myself.” A flash of anger, toothless against his sickly pallor. “I’ve gotten soft. Bad times for that to happen.”

“Having something to lose and learning you can work in a group isn’t going soft, Loki, and you know it. This is more of that ‘blah blah I’m a lone wolf no one can hurt me blah blah’ crap you always pull on yourself when things get tough.” He kept going, the grey-green eyes getting a flash of lively anger back. “You know what would happen? Your solo gig would go pretty well right up until it suddenly doesn’t, then a General has your ass in a sling and it’s a race against time for someone to realize what the hell happened and get you back before it all goes kaploo.”

“Coulson-“

“This has _literally_ happened before.”

Loki’s pale face scrunched in affronted disbelief. “ _When_? When have I caught my own leg in a trap?”

Phil lifted a hand and started counting off, the odd little flutter in his head coming back, but not because of Loki. “The Darkhold takeover. The time a dimensional sorcerer knocked your soul out of your body so he could snatch up Death Herself-“

“That one doesn’t count, I retrieved my own spirit.”

Coulson didn’t miss a beat. “While Strange and I kept your body stable. The Framework-“

“I knew where I was!”

“Took Daisy and me to get you out of it. You got shot up in the middle of an intergalactic illegal arms deal and needed rescue.”

“Okay-“

“That whatever the hell happened in the Mediterranean, with Aggie and Damien, when your magic alien space cat had to save your ass. Your _entire life_ before you fled Asgard again was a hot mess.”

“Coulson, I swear to _gods_ -“

“You call me down to your office once a week and pretend it’s not about getting my help with another pile of administrative paperwork that you screwed up and someone will have your ass over it because dark gods and tyrannical kings are absolutely one part of our world, but an aggrieved HR clerk on a locked schedule is a whole different horror of mortal existence. Further, we were in the middle of a bunch of changes when we lost Mace and General Talbot was sent by the Devil himself to mess everything up so now the rules change weekly, and now only I can save you.”

Loki sat there, his face going blank. “You really went digging for that one.”

“It still counts,” said Coulson, in a heavy sort of way that implied that he was only partially joking.

“I’m not sure I agree.”

“Point is, you can complain all you want, but keep it inside, because when it comes to these goons, you’re going to be safer in a group. Especially a group that’s learned to put up with you and, I realize this is somehow still a shock after all these years, may genuinely care about you.”

Loki was studying him, a crease of actual concern forming between his eyes. “I didn’t realize I was being that much of a headache.”

Coulson pulled the butt of his palm away from his forehead, not aware he was doing it. Hard, apparently. “It’s nothing.”

“Coulson…”

“Probably just a reaction to the antigrav. Makes your head all floaty.” Coulson shook it away and made sure to avoid a direct hit from the worried stare he was feeling coming off of Loki. “Anyway, I will argue this until I drop.”

“You’re going to, if you don’t relax. Sit down.” Loki flicked a glance past him as he did. “My Lady,” he called out, louder.

Kara’s shadow stretched into the hall, followed by a loose ring of hair and a glimpse of squinted eyes. “I am unfortunately fairly well informed about modern Midgardian culture and customs, which is probably another argument we’ll have pending. But that said, _please_ , don’t call me ‘My Lady’ or any derivative thereof, particularly in front of the humans.”

Coulson started laughing.

“No titles, then, between us,” said Loki, in a warning voice. “At all. Every time you say ‘Your Highness,’ the sarcasm is prickly enough to burn.”

“Honestly thought I wasn’t being that bad, but oh, well. Habits.” Kara framed herself in the doorway with a shrug, her arms folded behind herself like a palace guard delivering the word. “Gamora’s information is arriving early, but it’ll be some time before Nebula clears it for discussion. Further, with your brother arriving on the scene, she’s decided to wait for the supporting intel.”

“Not worth the dubious honor of the visit, is it?”

“Dubious? I haven’t shoved a knife in your face yet, which I admit is nigh a tradition.” Kara frowned. “No, that happened to me, actually. What _is_ it with you and things going terribly at such a damned rapid pace?”

“I wish I knew. I’ve never found a curse laid across my arse like a strop, so I’ve given up and assumed the Gods just like a good laugh.”

She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, we don’t put everything in our files, in case of interception or whatlike. I’ve further information about the generals you might find useful, and I’d appreciate what else you know of the Maw when you’ve time.”

“It’s not much, and it likely supports what else you have, but you’re welcome to it.” He gestured vaguely. “These bays are quite small, I’d offer a place to sit but there’s, ah…”

“It’s a bit tighter’n a mouse’s cheese-jammed bung down here, I know.” She stayed centered in the frame of the door. “I’ll be fine right here.”

Coulson blinked as another laugh threatened to gurgle up. “So you were the Queen’s personal handmaiden?”

Kara grinned. “Her Majesty had a bit of a mouth in private. I learned some of my best from her.”

“Before we begin one-upping each other with noble vulgarities, what did you think I needed to learn about the Generals so quickly that it couldn’t wait for another of our ad hoc little meetings, much less a quick note?” Loki picked up his datapad again, ignoring Kara’s sudden silence. He’d won his shot. “You’re good. I’m better.”

She didn’t bother to sulk. “Cull is Proxima’s pet more than anything else. His loyalty is to her alone, so she’s in charge of this arm of the operation entirely. Wherever and whatever the Swan is, she’s currently off the board. So is the Maw, for tactical reasons. The implication here is not just information. It’s direct revenge.”

“For what?” The grim gravel of Loki’s voice suggested he knew.

“The death of Corvus Glaive. The narrative is somewhat torturous, but she holds you to unusual responsibility.” She paused. “I expect I might understand why better than most.”

Loki didn’t look up. “Corvus died by Ronan’s hand, long after I escaped.”

“He was out of favor, letting you slip Thanos’s grasp. He was meant to have better control over you than that, and some retribution was unavoidable. So he was stripped of his weapons and left in a robe, a mouthpiece with none of the sycophantic grace of the Maw. Only that brute obedience. Without his tools, he couldn’t control Ronan, either. And paid in full for it.” She inclined her head. “Some of this is from Nebula. Some is from other sources.”

“Mercenaries that peeled away after Sanctuary’s fall, what needed new buyers. Kree speak more easily than most, too, given the right motivations.”

“Of course. But Thanos is gone, as is Ronan, as are all others a grieving widow might brace. Save for you. The word is their relationship was a strange one, hostile and fond both. But it was Cull that was there for her when he died, in what passes for kindness. And Proxima Midnight is not given to bygones.”

“‘It’s all personal, every bit of business,’” muttered Loki, freshly dour. The pallor was coming back. “‘Every piece of shit.’”

“So _that’s_ where my copy of the book went.” Coulson shook his head. “Okay, so do we know if the focus is only Loki, or is there something more going on? Nebula seems like she’s concerned this could hit her or Gamora, too. Anyone that slipped away from Thanos.”

“That… is the crux of our sole tactical disagreement. She holds that it is possible their attention is spread wider, and I fully understand why she might think that. We’re operating as if that’s still the potential case. However, I contend that, at least right now, it’s all directed at one target alone.”

Loki said nothing. He seemed to have shrunk within himself, a thing Coulson had never seen before.

“Do you have reasons for that? Besides the angry widow deal?” Coulson leaned back, regarding the former assassin.

“There isn’t much else to require, Director Coulson. There is proof that this is the driving motivation.” Kara glanced at Loki, sounding reluctant. “A trail left behind, a recording stolen from a brace of Chitauri ‘healers,’ the existence of the corpse itself.”

“I don’t understand.” Coulson felt something like ice coming off of Loki, but didn’t recognize it. Then he realized it was a deep, almost primitive fear. Nothing he’d ever felt before. Not from his friend.

Kara lowered her head, sounding apologetic. “Thanos continued to use Corvus, even beyond the grave. The Maw is one of the galaxy’s blackest sorcerers, recruited for his stolen knowledge of Death and the mysteries beyond. We know that he was set high in place to study the Soul Stone, evaluate Thanos’s own experiments with it from a separate facility. We know of other horrors they created, even what Thanos did to our kingdom’s poor, foolish Lady Amora with it. Corvus is dead, of course, and remains so. But I regret to report that his furious spirit is somehow still chained to our realm, as Thanos willed it, and Proxima wants to _break_ that chain, free her mate from a spell that we suspect is too complex for the Maw to undo alone. With blood, of course. For her vengeance.”

Loki rose with a frozen, robot-like abruptness, past Coulson’s knees and nearly bowling Kara over.

Coulson was on his feet a second later, but Kara was already down the hall, going after the gagging figure.


	10. The Black Hole

The bathrooms of most spaceships found in the vastness beyond Earth’s atmosphere are thankfully better engineered than the current iteration of NASA’s shuttle, which is a confusing mess at the best of times, and a cruel joke if one is at their worst. Tam’s ship had a nice little private bay with a piped in sachet of real flowers and naturally stench-killing spices, all the self cleaning widgets that could be reasonably installed to ensure the captain and her crew didn’t have to spend a lot of time with a rough sponge and scrubby bubbles (in spaaaace), and a _really_ nice shower that had been designed for a seven foot tall plus jotun starship captain and could thus rinse off nigh anyone in comfort and luxury.

This didn’t give Loki a whole lot of comfort as he finished being sick in the pretty silver and porcelain cubby meant for that most private business, his sweating forehead pressed against a cold metal wall for relief. At least, deep down, he knew it was clean. The rest of him was busy processing its rare but enthusiastic panic attack, the leering, death-slackened face of Corvus Glaive still imprinted on his mind like a ghost.

Like the trapped creature his torturer apparently still was.

His breath hitched, deciding if his body wanted another round of getting rid of everything he’d eaten in the last three months, and he rolled his forehead around that smooth metal to try and distract himself from the roiling, awful sensation.

“I’d been told it was bad, but I thought… Never mind. Now I believe.” A cool, damp towel was pressed against the back of his sweat-drenched neck. “Tam has a ginger root tea that works well for the stomach. She’s setting off a kettle of water. I’ll have a cup for you shortly. Moontear honey, too, to sweeten. That’s my contribution to the ship’s stores.”

He twitched, reaching up to slap at the towel and at Kara’s hand holding it.

“She doesn’t know why I asked. And it wouldn’t matter anyway, there’s few secrets and little gossip around here.” Kara let go of the towel and stepped back, giving him space. He continued to hold it in place, watching her out of the corner of his eye. He continued to, as her back set against the wall, then as she hunkered down to his level. “Your friend went back to the residencies. I asked him to and he listened to me, despite that he’s very worried about you. Sometimes, oddly, things are a little easier to suffer when it’s only a stranger around to see. I think he understands that _very_ well. As he understands you, apparently.”

“You’re not that much a stranger,” he managed to say, his voice a vomit-strained croak instead of the displeased gravel he wanted.

“Strange enough.” She studied him, not staring, perhaps even concerned.

“Nebula?” She was the only one who had been there. The one who would know what happened, there in Thanos’s long shadow.

“Mm. We all have our biases, them things we have to consider of the teller when we are told their tales. She is more aware of her own than most, but what scant stories she was willing to tell me of Sanctuary were… bitter.” Kara inclined her head. “Hard to believe, even, some of it.” She creased her face in a small, rueful smile. “Would it make you feel any better that I thought you were hardier than she implied, that you survived it with more of you hidden and intact, another ruse to survive the way you’ve survived other legends we’ve heard of the black prince of Asgard?”

Loki looked away. “You weren’t there. You wouldn’t know.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” She said it frankly. “But now I can see that you hid the damage better, later.”

“If you ask me to get a therapist-“

“I won’t. That’s for your friends to tell you, and I expect they’ve done.” Kara interlaced her hands between her knees, regarding him. Like the way she had done in Asgard long ago, a predator perched light on the sills of tall windows, knowing she had him cornered. “All I’ll say is I understand perhaps a fraction, and I didn’t come after you to make an indiscreet mess to upset you further. I didn’t know how you’d take the news I held. Figured you’d at least rather hear in some privacy. With a friend, even. Then I felt it was on me to smooth the hurt a touch.”

“Thanks for that.” It came out bitterly, which she didn’t deserve.

The faint smile broadened. Perhaps she understood that, too. “Never quite down for the count, are you? Well. It’s a matter to deal with, having a ghost trapped at our enemy’s side, and it’s something unwanted for you to have to face. I’m sorry for that, I am. But now you’ve some of the information we thought you needed. Work on that, till you want to deal with the rest.” Kara started to straighten up.

“Wait.” Loki pulled the now-warm towel away from his neck. “Why would you understand?”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, honestly. We’re not here for my tales, and you’ve nothing to bargain for it this time.”

“I could try just asking. Did, in fact.”

“So you did.” Kara puffed out a breath, looking reluctant. “Damn me for trying to be sympathetic. _Not_ pitying, keep your grimace.” She flapped a hand at him, looking away. “To be honest, I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not ready. That’s the first key that I had to learn. If one has to confront their own horrors to get through, alone, get them on your schedule - and then, actually look upon them, as clinically as one can. Study them. Breathe. And then, for a while anyway, move on. It’s not perfect, it’s just a bandage. But it can be a start.”

“Ground and center.” The gravel was coming back to his voice. The attack had moved on, only a rubberiness in his legs that could be ignored.

“Hm?” She shot him a glance, puzzled.

“Magical meditation. You can’t begin a great work without centering yourself and understanding the nature of your focus.”

“Ah. Yes, then. In my experience, you can’t begin healing a mind without something very much like that.” A faint slip of a smile. “And there’ll be scars, anyway. Rubble for your thoughts to trip over. Everyone’s got a few.” She flapped a hand again. “I’ll go set that tea. Your friend can bring it to you, you’d both prefer that, I think. And no one will bring this up to you later, lest it’s a conversation you want to have. Why would we? It’s not weakness, Prince Loki, moments like this. It is, regrettably, a part of surviving.”

He said nothing to that as she spun on her heel and left him.

. . .

Brynnhilde had been a Valkyrie for well over fifteen hundred years before the atrocity on the fields of broken Helheim, and she didn’t know how long she’d lived in the timeless pocket of black hole space that kept Sakaar isolated from the rest of the universe. But somewhere in between the blackouts that kept her from thinking too much on her service to Asgard’s abrupt end, she had learned to fly a ridiculous number of vessels, all of them in various states of repair. Mostly shite.

It was a fine thing to handle a good ship for once, and its controls handled like butter under her grip. Thor was attempting to collate and match information while she slipped from asteroid shadow to shadow, since he’d learned some better techniques from that strange brother of his. She kept a weather eye on the radar meanwhile, ensuring no oncoming, no interference from the probes he’d launched to support this Gamora’s.

“And?” She half-turned her head at the prince’s mutter. “How bad does it look?”

“Not a cheap operation. The Grandmaster has opened his pockets deep.”

“Makes sense. I told you he was getting twitchier while I was still there - you know that’s where I saw that girl of your brother’s, right? I didn’t bother to bring it up after we finished knocking about at each other, but it seems by the end we had the same mission on Sakaar by raw accident. Her by intent, and me by virtue of being there. She seemed far too keen to be one of his half-drugged servant girls. I thought it was simply an effect of being new.”

“That Kara?” Thor glanced up. “So it _is_ all true, my mother kept an assassin and handmaiden close by. And Loki discovered it.” He chuckled. “ _And_ his human friends, somehow.”

“Oh?”

“The young heroine, Daisy. She asked me about her. Funny thing, meant nothing at all at the time. One of my brother’s mysteries. I did warn her to be careful, though, since it was his.” A rustle of paper. The prince wasn’t trusting his notes to the computer, not all of them. “This Cull is already dug deep. He struck the primary re-settlement colony, raged over its entire network. There’s a handful of scout villages still standing, meant to rebuild and create a sustainable ecology again, but they rely on supply from the main colony. On their own, they’re frail.”

“So now they’re relying on Cull’s dubious graces.”

“Yes. And he’s allowing it. Probably to make a point. The other two worlds have smaller colony drops, but they’re all under his thumb already. Gamora has the right of it. Troop carriers boxing them all in. And as she suggested, trails, leading elsewhere. Deep into space, via routes I’ve never seen on our maps.” Another rustle. “Her probes couldn’t finish identifying the target destination. But if you can keep us within range another twenty minutes, maybe less, I can finish the math.”

“By hand?” She couldn’t stop a small laugh.

“By hand, Lady Bryn, until final computation.” Thor grunted. “There’s too much extrapolation involved, a computer would simply hang. I can take an educated guess where necessary, then let it finish when we get out of here. Just hold us safe.”

“I’m trying, but they’re running sweeps irregular. Smart bastards. I’ve managed to dance well so far, but sooner or later they’ll catch my arse out.” She sniffed and took another careful push, placing the ship in the lee of a large, oval asteroid.

“Keep that rescue jump plotted.”

“I’m _trying_.” Bryn was growing nervous and hated it. She was _good_ at piloting ships, but she also felt blinded in them. Blinded without her battalion at her side, blinded without their loyal flying steeds that could sense incoming dangers in a way a mindless radar never could. For dateless ages, blinded.

She wanted a drink, even though she knew full well that was just another kind of willful blindness. She stayed focused on the job instead, dancing, dancing, keeping herself in the shadows while a pen continued to scratch against paper, like an ancient astronomer in the days where the paths of the stars were yet a mystery.

And as she knew it would, sooner or later, that focus wasn’t quite enough. She reacted to the ship’s warning in the split second between the approach grid lighting up and the warning chimes going off, pulling back into the shadows and looking for the escape she already had in mind. “Tell me you’re done.”

“Almost,” said Thor, unusually sedate considering the ship was transitioning to emergency combat maneuvers. “Yes. Now to compile. Computer can take that.”

She processed the jump she already had planned, saw it light on the console, and then instantly flick red. “Fuck!”

“Bryn?” Now Thor sounded focused. He pushed forward and read the console, ignoring the radar that said more enemy vessels were about to move in. “Damn them. Blocked the escape. They must have a protocol. Wonder if they’ve trapped others this way.”

Bryn said nothing. She hit an emergency hail, a quick automated call to Nebula’s base, then resumed evasive maneuvers, looking for the next way out through a line of six quick little hostiles. “Thinking that’s likely, Prince.”

Thor looked up as the ship’s shields took the first spatter of laser fire, holding steady. His eyes narrowed.

“Don’t,” she said, already knowing what he was thinking about.

“I’d be a smaller target.”

“You’ve almost no atmosphere to summon the lightning in this section. Being a target with a tiny single-shot mass driver in that hammer of yours is about all you’ve got.”

“I’d buy us time.”

“And they’d find out Loki’s own brother is on the field. Your Highness, sit your ass _down_.” She went into commander mode, a relic of ancient days, barking the order without a thought to consequences.

Thor sat in the copilot’s chair, and when the board lit up to say there was an incoming transmission, he delicately handled that while Bryn dodged and rolled them through another wave of attacks. “Nebula?”

“ _Tam. I’m tapping your comp through the line, feeding you a new jump co-ord. You need to slip all tracking before you take it. If you come through with unfriendlies, you’re all going to get demolished. Where I’m sending you doesn’t play._ ”

Bryn glanced down at the incoming information, all she could spare before a vessel got in front of her face. She dodged it and its armor-junking missile. A supposedly stable wormhole gap just outside the asteroid belt. “That’s not a real jump gate.”

“ _It’ll be real enough when it saves your ass. Jump it, hail the frequency I’ve added, do not even think about touching anything other than pilot controls when you’re at the end gate. Do what they tell you. We’ll rendezvous after._ ” Tam clicked off.

“I don’t-“

“Take the jump.” Thor ran his hands across the console, getting ready to divert power to the shields. A good burst would fry all tracking. They’d re-lock within seconds, but it was a chance they needed to risk. “Readying burst.”

“Blow it,” muttered Bryn, and dove between two narrow asteroids, doing her part to shake any tails.

The shield burst dropped the rest. Five free seconds to close the gap to a shimmer in space that honeycombed open to swallow them-

. . .

_not a real jump gate, a hole in the universe, slipstream realities girded by strange artifact magic, reaching out, touching them, tracing them strong enough that the two Asgardians could feel it across their skin, seeing them alone and unfollowed, screaming ahead through what became not a hive but a weave stretching changing, forced into the shapes it needed to be, impossible escape, time stretching, and then-_

. . .

The corsair fell into cold, sane space, and then the board lit up to tell them that three massive vessels had already completed lock-on. The readout told them they were heavy driver weapons that could nearly kill a fully kitted Kree frigate with one shot. Their eyes told the Valkyrie and the prince that they were a trio of carriers, and around them, a small fleet of destroyers. Hanging there. Waiting for orders. Beyond them were merchanteers and brigade busters, tiny shiplights fading into the black like stars of their own.

“No signal marks,” said Bryn, hushed, reading her scan. “They’re bashkit, no identifiable shipmaker. A completely anonymous fleet.”

Thor silently pushed out an automated hail on the frequency Tam programmed. Then he waited.

A surly, untrusting voice came over the line a moment later. “ _Unmarked corsair, we were notified of your arrival. Follow this heading, you’ll be docking with our primary._ ” It cut off, automatically uploading a course. Bryn, no idiot, let the ship be pulled in to the heart of the unknown fleet.


	11. Regrets, We Have a Few

Thor hadn’t caught up on every detail from the hours before his and Bryn’s arrival at Nebula’s station. They’d barely had time to process the revelation that this Captain Tam was somehow a blood relative to Loki, that there was some other new jotun mystery here to consider.

Watching the carrier absorb their corsair within itself like some grand whale ignoring brine and prawn in favor of what it could conquer instead, he realized the implication here with a chill that belied the remnants of that older thinking he’d been raised with. A secret fleet, lurking in magic-shielded space. Jotun warriors with armaments like nothing they’d ever wielded in past wars.

And then he remembered the lessons of more recent times, that if this fleet existed then it was undoubtedly some fragment of a kinder Queen’s plan, not the dead warlord king, and that these ships had never engaged in any known hostility with Asgard. They hid, and, he realized, protected those merchanteers and runners that used their secret jump gates. No pleasure ships, and really only a few central war machines at the core of the fleet. The rest were meant for surviving hardships pressed on them by both their own cruel leadership - and by Asgard.

A glance at Bryn’s face said she was confused by what she was seeing, but she would go where he led. The Valkyries had never really been used against the jotun, and as a more pragmatic, complex force, their thinking was tactical rather than reactionary. If the jotun were not acting as an enemy, then they would not be treated as one. Such was their way, and many famous male warriors in Asgard’s lore had thought that kind of thinking was too alien to reckon with. Another flaw he would have to consider, when it was his time to reign.

Thor blinked as the ship’s shadow consumed them, and the corsair auto’d its way to a platform, near a handful of wounded vessels. Blockade runners, all, with small, furry engineers and larger blue figures working on them. And in the distance, the tall figures of their welcoming party.

Thor hoped it would, in fact, be fairly welcoming. All things considered.

. . .

The jotun waited for the pair of Asgardians to disembark their corsair. In the front was a ten foot and change tall, proud-looking blue woman in a privateer’s black captain’s uniform. She watched them with a sharp but faintly recognizable face, ruby eyes never blinking. She wasn’t familiar because they’d ever met, realized Thor as they approached, but because in the sharpness of her features was an echo of Farbauti’s own clever bones - and Loki’s, as well. He bowed low to the sister of the Queen of Jotunheim, and when he rose, he saw that same familiar eyebrow quirk high, amused by him. “Princess.”

“Young Prince of Asgard,” said the fleet captain, her giant’s accent all but gone, replaced with a trained mix of lyrical sounds that offered no easy clue to country. “I am Hrymi Stjornispekidottir, blood of the Clan of the Sky, mother of Tam who vouches for your arrival. I appreciate that you followed her instructions to the letter, but allow me one of my own. I disavow my noble titles, for my Farbauti’s sake. Captain, only, please. The one I earned.”

“Captain,” he said, with another polite bow of his head. “This is the Valkyrie Brynnhilde, who piloted our escape.” Bryn bowed her head at the introduction as well, serene and unconcerned by the rest of the jotun piling in to the bay to examine the new arrivals.

“A good job, Valkyrie. They are eerie at first, our tunnels through space. And terribly old.” Hrymi inclined her head as Bryn bobbed her head as she acknowledged the compliment. “We didn’t build them, us of Jotunheim. We kept the maps in the family, one of our secrets. And now you are entrusted with it, Prince of Asgard. My sister speaks well of the future of the Nine Realms, and its king to be. She is wise and I would trust her to the ends of the universe, but a life in space has forced me towards colder pragmatism. I will trust her, but I apologize that I will still judge you for myself, as well.”

Thor didn’t bristle. “Only sensible, Captain. Thank you for allowing us to dock.”

Hrymi nodded, then gestured at the corsair. “Any damage? I’ve engineers on standby.”

“Nothing major, Captain,” said Bryn. “Shields held to the end.”

“Good. We’ll be happy to help you look it over to be sure, with your supervision, of course. And I’m informed this was an intelligence mission. Have you succeeded?”

“Waiting on final data compilation.” Thor considered whether that was all he should say, and then mentally shrugged. That Tam seemed like a trustworthy sort, and Thor thought well of Loki’s recent discoveries of his better kin. Each decision he would make would change the future, he supposed, and banking on hope seemed a better thing. “The data was in a rough state, I had to sort it by hand to a point. They’re covering tracks well, hoping for some sort of surprise play if they change attack targets.”

“Seems to be this General’s motif, as I’ve been briefed. He punches unfairly, close to the heart.” Hrymi brought her hands around from behind her back in a dramatic little clap. “Well! You’re guests of the fleet. I cordially invite you to my table, to break bread in safety until your business is done. My word protects.”

“Fleet Captain’s word,” said a jotun at her side in a ritual echo, the much larger young man bowing his head with a cheerful smile. There were over a dozen more of these giants now in the bay, engineers and captain’s crew, every one a different size, and every face either curious or nervous but also calm. Almost all were still ‘smaller’ as Thor thought it was reckoned among them, but he supposed it made sense. Even Hrymi was a bare mite shorter than her queenly sibling. The bigger warriors of Jotunheim could be formidable in their snows, but not so much when cramped into even the largest space vessels. “Bread’s heritage dough, and we’ve brought out some imports for the table. High Elf mead and salted Vanaheim meats.”

Hrymi laughed at Thor’s surprised look. “We’ve lived as exiles from our own world for centuries, young Prince. But our poverty is slowly becoming a memory again. And for that, we happily share what we have. Come on. Rest an hour, before the work resumes.”

. . .

“It was our Ma’mah’s idea. Grandmother Hati. No chance of stopping the royal wedding, though she threatened a blood war over it at first. She went silent after that was shouted down in council. The warlords thought the shamans had been cowed. But no. She was thinking.” Hrymi rested her chin on the back of her hand for a moment, the thick mug of good mead sitting half-empty while she remembered older days. “Farbauti would be married off to that vicious, stupid lunk, and his warriors would scar our own world with their blades worse than they would any other. That could not be changed, not right away. But she and Po’h - Manni, our shaman grandfather - foretold what would come. Now, when I say that, I do not mean they made prophecy with old herbs - though they _could_ do that. Ma’mah was a tactician of cold-blooded renown.”

“I know the type,” said Thor, bemused.

“I’ve _heard_ ,” chuckled the captain, momentarily diverted from her story. “My sister writes me with interesting tales she hears from him. Now, my grandmother saw the ruins Laufey would make. No interest in leadership, only _ruling_. And his wars and revenges. A tiresome and woefully familiar type, but he was also erratic enough to be difficult to stop. So she started putting together mitigation plans.

“The wedding was a mess. Traditionally they are loud, long affairs that your realm might find comfortable. But because it was also a transition of power, and because Laufey was a fucking blighter for the long view, we’re not sure he ever really noticed that his own wife’s sister vanished. I was tucked off to the stars with a core of shamans and merchants, out on our own to establish a supply and intelligence chain that _wouldn’t_ get trampled. By him or our ancient enemies, no offense.”

“None taken.” _Good_ godsdamn mead. Thor took another swig. Bryn looked comfortably asleep next to a lieutenant twice her size. “And you’ve established it damn well, by the sight of it. More came to your aid over the years, it looks.”

“Aye, we brought in refugees from our own world when we could, smuggling them and their goods out. A rare few hire in from other worlds, exiles of their own stories.” She looked pleased at the compliment. “We’re nigh three generations now, too. There’s jotun among us who’ve yet to see their home, step into its ice. But soon.” She sounded longing.

“How’ve you stayed unseen so damn long? Not even our Heimdall noticed you in the stars. I would have thought there would be at least a rumor of, forgive me Captain, strange blue figures out in the void committing terrific acts of piracy against bastards.”

Hrymi laughed. “We pass as pinks and browns here and there at need, no one looks at tall but generic humanoids. We’re shaman children, many of us, and it’s a simple illusion. To the rest, we learned how to be _small_ , in certain ways. Our paths are kept dim. If your seer swept his eye across us, even he would see only what we wanted him to see. Further, our business isn’t conflict, so why would your eyes ever think to seek us?”

“That makes sense.” Thor nodded.

“And other times, caught out, we’re disregarded as odd looking Kree. Fuck most Kree, incidentally, but it’s gotten a few of us out of some interesting scrapes.”

Thor threw his head back and laughed, hoisting his mug in a salute. Next to him, Bryn started into something like wakefulness, the ship sending a chirp to the device in her pocket. He sobered and turned to her. “Data’s ready?”

She pulled out a small datapad with a thoughtful frown. “Looks like,” she said, handing it over to him. “It’s your work, you best to sort the results.”

“Shall I leave you to solitude?” The captain didn’t move yet, but she observed them.

Thor shook his head as he started to read. “No, Captain. It’s fine, we may need your wisd-“ He cut himself off with a jolt, leaning forward until the leftovers on his plate threatened to smear his armored chest. “Hells and dead gods!”

If Bryn had been on the edge of passed out drunk, it was all gone now. She looked as sharp as a glass knife. “What’s the bad word?”

“Captain, fate’s useful turn here. Probably best you _are_ here to advise.” Thor turned the pad around and handed it to Hrymi without hesitation. “Cull Obsidian’s secondary strike zone is meant to be Jotunheim itself.”

. . .

Loki stormed out of Nebula’s meeting hall and looked around, half-blind, seeking a place to exist in solitude. Nothing. The residence bays of the ship were too small, the tiny port’s locked. The bathroom already scarred in his mind, a place too easily found. The bays would echo, even if he recused himself to Tam’s smaller one. Nowhere to hide, to let out the scream churning behind his teeth.

He wrapped himself in costly invisibility and ducked past a worried looking Daisy, who turned at the sense of a strange wind passing but didn’t see him, and he walked, thoughtless, wild, looking for a construction hold, something, anything.

He finally found a storage locker near the bay Thor’s corsair had docked in, a large and barely used space with a firm new door on it. Within were only a few empty crates and some tools pinned on the wall. The crates turned into ruins a second later, his hands gripping burnt splinters, one of them jabbing into his thumb. He didn’t feel it, didn’t hear the raspy wail of fury and frustration he allowed, transforming the bellow into something subtle but no less broken. With a pulse of uncontrolled magic, the tools scattered around him, denting into the walls and the locked door.

And then Loki panted, emptied out. At least for now. He dropped the ruined crate and stuck the heel of his bloody thumb into his mouth with a grimace. There was a sound outside the storage locker, but whoever it was hesitated for only a second and then withdrew. Phil, probably. He would know better than to knock on the locker’s door. Leave Loki alone for a while yet. He hoped his friend would keep others away for now. He doubted his eyes were sane, guessed at the fresh hollows in his cheeks.

Jotunheim. Was he not guilty _enough_? Had he not brought enough disaster to enough worlds already? Asgard nearly fell due to him, more than once. Earth had been changed forever by his assault, and that could never be wiped away. He’d openly attempted Jotunheim’s destruction once. The Triuum worlds, ravaged by his plans. That unknown little planet hollowed out by the Chitauri and their monstrous worms, an unmarked sanctuary he’d had to destroy to save others like it.

Wasn’t it _enough_?

A sob threatened to choke him. If Cull Obsidian wasn’t stopped as soon as possible, that war machine he was forging all around the Triuum would bring itself to bear on a realm that he’d only recently begun to find peace with. A world where he’d finally begun to understand their kind as not only a worthy people in their own right, but as _his_ kind, and it no longer hurt, no longer creaked at his easily broken mind. Gymir as a kindred mage, the gentle old shaman. Slidda, the Queen’s personal guard. She was barely taller than he and twice as dangerous at least. Farbauti herself, comfortable these days with the recognition that she was his mother, and that they were both trying, _trying_ to learn what that meant. Hundreds of those jotun who had willingly saved Asgardians during their near-disaster.

The warriors, including the Laufeyan loyalists deep in the drifts that might still be an enemy to Asgard, and even to their own queen. _None_ of them deserved to suffer for his sake. Not like this.

Loki realized his face was pressed into his hands, smelled a tiny smear of blood on one cheek. His thumb was already healing, but not before it left its stain. He swiped at it, like it was a teardrop.

Cull couldn’t leave the Triuum system. Not alive. Not while Loki lived.

The chill came back, that dangerous calm that used to visit him after one of his breaks. Loki had repurposed it since, made it tactical.

Cull _would not_ leave the Triuum system alive. No matter what. He would see to it. With help from Nebula and her alliance, or not. The cost no longer mattered. The endgame was the only thing that did.

No more death. Not for the meager value of his life.


	12. A Real Cluster

Coulson watched the world double-up again, a tide pool ripple of nausea charging throughout his system. He’d gone after Loki, knowing from the way Daisy had described his abrupt disappearance that he was going all-out and licking deep wounds somewhere on either the ship or the port. He wouldn’t leave by magical means, not with the two of them there, so he was still close.

It had been easy to spot the locker Loki chose, since Coulson strongly doubted doors vibrating outward from internal pressure was normally a thing even in the weirder parts of space. But something about the sounds coming from inside made Phil change his mind about knocking. Sometimes fear and grief were a pressure cooker. You had to let it ease down before you popped the lid. Doing anything else was a mistake.

He’d backed away instead, the migraine he’d been ignoring as he jogged after the trail of his friend slamming hard into him as it finally caught up. He almost threw up as the usually painless aura became a sharp icepick throb along the side of his skull, and he didn’t remember coming back to the residence bays of Tam’s ship.

He didn’t remember laying down. But here he was. His thoughts were a jumble. It wasn’t a stroke, wouldn’t be anything too dangerous. Coulson was well-acquainted with his med readout and he wasn’t at any sort of major risk. What he’d done was push himself a touch too far in a new environment. The port and ship’s gravity seemed Earth normal, but after a while he realized it was the tiniest bit different, maybe even just an affect of the internal pressure, and that was probably wreaking havoc on his blood pressure. Hence, it was gonna be a migraine party for a while.

According to his med notes, the Kree medicine that had brought him back to life all those years ago _was_ holding, but mish-mashing alien DNA with human, even between species so galactically similar, was likely to have unexpected results. The Inhumans could testify to that, of course.

_Honestly_ , he figured between moments of migraine haze. _It could have been worse_. What if the old wound had opened back up somehow, gone necrotic? Now _that_ would have sucked, up to and including having to explain it to Loki. In comparison, a little neurological glitchiness as he got older should have been a delight. Semiregular cycling headaches hadn’t sounded so bad when he got his diagnosis.

In Phil’s defense, he realized he hadn’t really thought about the differences between an average temple knocker and the ‘settle down Satan’ hellscape of a true migraine.

Much less its kaiju asshole cousin, the cluster headache.

He’d had one flare-up like this before, last fall. Lucky so far. Odds were they’d get worse over the years, though he was still waiting on other test results. He’d quietly recused himself from what was thankfully a boring meeting anyway with a slew of generals, threw up for what felt like half the week, and then checked himself in for oxygen treatment and an injection of the latest cocktail specialists had for cluster migraine. He’d been functional after that, but a: holy god that had _sucked_ , and b: it finally put him in the crosshairs with the higher ups.

Phil rolled onto his back. The nausea came along, informing him that this was going to be a bad idea unless he really wanted to spew a geyser right up into his own eyes, and he continued his roll until he faced the steel wall of the bay. He pressed his eyes shut, wondering if space tylenol was any stronger than Earth tylenol. Based on the way Loki had a fondness for their stuff, probably not.

There was a rap at the edge of the open door, soft but still enough to drill into his skull. “Hey. Are you all right?”

It was that Kara again. “I’ll be fine.” That would be true, eventually. He resisted the urge to press his skull hard into the wall, maybe sandwich the pain building on one side of his skull.

“Did you learn to fib from him, or is that one of the things you two bond over?” A shadow passed over him, looking amused and dour both. “Why am I the station nurse today? Ah, well.” A hand passed over his brow. He winced as the light came back in. “Hm. Numbness down your face? Trouble speaking?”

“No. It’s not a stroke.”

“Bloody good to hear, Tam’d shit if she had to figure out how to rig the emergency kit for humans in thirty seconds or less.” A pause. “Gods, maybe we should do that anyway, just in case. Did you get hurt? Stuff should be secured in the bays, but-”

He tried to shake his head, but it set off another round of thumping, followed by nausea. “Just a headache.”

“You look a fair gallop past ‘just.’ You’re paler than the prince.”

“Bit of nausea.”

“Ah.” Kara leaned back. Now he could see her in the dark. The migraine lined her with a little weird light, almost maroon somehow. “ _Those_.”

He didn’t say anything, wondering what she’d put together.

“Bull migraine, aye? Kree boy that works with Tam sometimes, he gets them because of his cyber implants. He calls them bombers. Same thing.”

“Cluster headache.”

“That’s the bitch.” She pat his shoulder, gently, not jostling him. “I’ve never had one. Kid tells me - Jat - that when they really get going, he wants to up and disappear. I told him I’ve been shot, stabbed, had a tendon sliced and damn near peeled back. Got slammed off a building once, hit the ground hard enough to crater. All the grand stuff. Wasn’t trying to one-up him, only make comparisons to gauge his pain. He told me, get a bomber, you’d still want it to just _end_.”

He nodded, as slightly as he could. He agreed wholeheartedly with Jat. Just a headache. Good _lord_ , he hadn’t suspected this when the doctors talked to him.

“So. I’ll be right back. You’re in luck. We’ve got a stock of med potions for him. I need to do an ingredient check, make sure I don’t make you worse. But it’ll ease the pain off.”

“No cure?” He chuckled, then winced. “Not even out here?”

“You’d have to ask a healer, and I’m not, I’m afraid.” She lifted herself up from the edge of his cot. “Rest and hold still. Be just a nonce.”

. . .

Captain Hrymi pulled out the rest of the troop data gathered by Gamora and Thor’s separate investigations and spread them holographically across the far wall of her tactical ops room. Then she began stringing together connections, some of them from the work, others reasonable guesses that matched Thor’s own assessments. “The orbital bombing team is staying close to main camp, that’s the first threat I’d lock down. They had a choice, try to spread it out and hide it, or keep it close for rapid deploy. Since they wagered on no one getting close enough to do a deep scan, they settled for the former. That’s one point for Jotunheim. The rest of the layout should be easily pieced from there.”

Bryn pointed at a line of camps between the ruined capitol city and a nearby farming commune. “Those are ground troops. Sweep in transports and you can pull up any amount of warm bodies you need.” She pondered. “They’ll move a little slow, though. I don’t think they’re prepped for Jotunheim’s climate. They’d need to gear.”

“Aye, but if you move them like shock troops and don’t give a damn about collateral, you’d do enough damage without. It’s a good point, but can’t bet on it. I’d identify the transport ships and get them pinned down shortly after destroying the bombers.” Hrymi marked the troop camps and made a priority notification next to them.

“Agreed.” Bryn looked at the notes with a frown. “Wait. Jotunheim’s not well suited to a bombing campaign, is it?”

“It is if you know well what you’re doing.” Hrymi shot her an unreadable glance. “I’m going to assume they do. The main palace alone would be a horrific loss to us. It’s symbolic. Even Laufey never broke its spires, and your Asgard, to its credit, never once placed arbalests around it.”

“No. I can’t speak for previous rulers, but from what I was told, Frigga herself shouted down the one jarl that suggested it after the Casket’s rally on old Midgard.” Thor scratched at his bare upper arm. “It never went further than that. But first we need a way to strafe that planet. Captain-“

“I’ve already sent word through our channels.” Hrymi sat down in the chair marked for her alone, a grand seat carved with the sigil of her clan and lightly furred along its high back. “I’d offer my assistance directly, and if this were not by accident of fate a jotun matter, I would, but for this I need my sister’s word. She’ll grant it, I expect, but we need to wait.”

Thor looked at her, surprised. “I hadn’t even considered asking you to put your people at risk, Captain Hrymi. Nebula could hire mercenaries, and I have a few quieter contacts. We ought to be able to cobble a counter team. I was only going to ask for a few coded transmits through your better system.”

Hrymi shook her head, and in the nobility of the gesture was a mirror of her sister. “Accident of fate or no, this becomes our fight.” She frowned, thinking. “Besides. Mercenaries have a point where they’ll abandon a dangerous field. Further, they’ll eventually belie the paycheck trail. You told me, Highness, that the purpose to your careful scouting and secrecy is to muddy every hint possible, to shroud capability.” The frown gradually became the shady sneer of a true tactician’s delight, and in that, Thor marveled, he saw his brother’s face clearly. “What greater shroud than a fleet with no transmit marks, no maker, no known funding?”

Bryn began to laugh. “Oh, she’s _good_.” She looked at Thor. “Highness, if these women had been in charge, our Asgard would have lost those damn stupid wars.”

Thor snorted, remembering Farbauti’s tales of deadly diplomacy, a few of them shared months ago as one of Odin’s family schemes - this one well intentioned, admittedly - fell apart at her feet. “They never would have been fought afield in the first place. We’d have lost at the second stroke of a pen.”

. . .

Daisy followed Kara back, fairly sure the woman knew she was there but acknowledging that she _was_ trained as an agent herself, and a decent one, and letting her do her thing. Daisy knew she still came off young and inexperienced to a lot of people, but these days that was a little more of an illusion - hey, everyone at base was learning about those from the best - and sometimes an artifact of finally being in a place where she felt safe and actually trusted. It was okay to seem silly, as long as one put up when it mattered. And she did.

This was no top secret mission, but she _did_ know Coulson had been hiding something. Loki would know, because Loki found out about everything eventually, and _maybe_ May knew. That was a whole other thing kept on the down low, and most of the team was cheerfully playing along. That was cool.

But neither of them talked. Not easily.

Coulson was taking a lot of private time lately. Not like an _actual_ lot for most people, a day here, a long weekend there. But for him, it was a ton. And now Coulson had slipped off just like he did on those secretive days away.

She stayed around the bulkhead curve to the bays, waiting for the sound of a residence door being slid mostly shut, and then waited for Kara to disappear up the hall back towards the cockpit.

Instead, as Daisy scrunched her face, the Asgardian came back her way. She put a finger to her lips and gently grasped Daisy’s upper arm, indicating for her to follow. _Well, what are ya gonna do?_ So she did.

Kara didn’t lead them far, just to a cramped little hall not far from the cargo bay. “Good follow. Switch to soft soles, roll on the balls of your feet when you can. You’re in hard territory, ship steel carries bird farts as it is, and Tam made this place an even worse echo chamber on my recommendation. Nebula’s port is about as bad. No one sneaks up on anyone around here.”

“Noted, thanks. Seriously.” She looked up into the woman’s face, Kara just a little taller than herself, and softer-faced than one would expect from a trained killer. Which was probably the point. She’d proven herself the type to not be into beating around the shrubbery. “What’s going on with Coulson? Is he all right?”

“He’s fine,” said Kara, and it sounded truthful in the sort of way where truth can hide a lot of detail when used well. “Space travel hits everyone a little different.”

“He’s been out here before and did okay. Rocket would have gossiped.” She watched Kara’s face turn pensive. “Look, I don’t dig around for people’s secrets to be a bitch, it just so happens I have a lot of friends that won’t talk about what’s going on with them until their leg is hanging off by like three veins, a thin-slice cut of bacon, and a prayer. I kinda like to try and get there before they hit that point.”

“It’s not for me to wedge my place between others.”

“So there _is_ something going on.”

Dismay crossed Kara’s face at her words. “I didn’t suggest that.”

“No, but come on. There is. He’s trying to be the stoic leadership type but now he’s hiding, and Loki ran off to probably throw up his shoelaces again and I’m over here wanting to stress-drink about six cans of Mountain Dew just so my guts can empathize properly. You don’t want to be in the middle. I _am_ , and I don’t always know how or why.” Frustration crept into her voice. “Do you know how much it sucks to want to help your friends but nobody can just _say_ shit to each other?”

Kara stared over her head, a mix of emotions rambling across her face and ending on exceptionally tired sympathy. “I have served the Royal House of Asgard for over eight hundred years.”

“Okay, then, you get it.”

Those dark eyes filtered back down to hers. “All right. But we’re going to barter. A question for a question.”

“You got that from _him_.”

“I did. The pasty bastard’s a virus, isn’t he?” Kara leaned back and crossed her arms against herself. “All right. Both questions on the table. I’ve yours, here’s mine: Where have we met? You act like you know me, played it off well but you do. But my memory is trained and I swear I don’t know you at all.”

Daisy felt her face pull into an exaggerated version of the grimace emoji despite herself, her lips so taut against her teeth that she was going to vampire her own lip if she wasn’t careful. “Can I get a mulligan on that?”

“No.”

“Ugh. Okay. I will answer it, it’s just… messy. But Coulson?”

“He’s having an _extremely_ severe headache. It’s not uncommon, even out here. Tam has an associate who gets them, due to his implants.”

“Jat! He’s doing okay?”

Kara blinked at the recognition. “He’s quite successful at what he does. He runs a skip-ship, currently out on a run. I suppose Tam’s building her own mini fleet, in a way. Regardless. I suspect your friend is having them chronically, because that’s how these kinds of thumpers go. I don’t know the details, but he will be fine today. They’re painful headaches, often debilitating, and I have no idea what this means for him from here. I have no idea if there are any complications waiting for him down the line. That part I must leave to you. I’ve given him one of our potions, he’s going to rest a while, and he _will_ be fine. Uncomfortable, but upright and back to form.”

“Thank you,” said Daisy, sincerely. “So, your question.”

“Yes.”

“Got a while? Maybe a chair?”

. . .

Daisy explained to Kara what she saw in the Framework, what it had been like in there. What it was. The computerized illusion of a broken world order, led by Hydra. The trapped members of SHIELD looped into new lives of their own like a really bad season of _Westworld_ \- Coulson as a teacher, others as Hydra loyalists or scientists, or rebels allowed small victories to satisfy them. And Loki, as Asgard’s new ambassador. With an Asgardian chief of security that eventually helped them escape, whose very appearance seemed to frustrate Loki every time Daisy saw them in the same room.

Kara sat there and absorbed the tale silently, including the part where her programmed double willingly died to help the SHIELD agents escape.

. . .

Kara sat there a few minutes longer, sunk back into the borrowed chair, probably mentally replaying the tape. It was a lot to absorb, Daisy admitted.

. . .

And then finally, she spoke. “The _fuck_?” said Kara, flabbergasted.

“I know, right?”

“The absolute fuck.” She rolled her eyes to the ceiling of the little hold she’d commandeered for their chat. “I hate AI.”

“ _I know, right??_ ”

“Hel was I doing there?”

“Dude, I have no idea, he gets _super_ pissed if it comes up. Did you hear him screaming way earlier, before he upchucked? That’s why he was screaming. I brought it up.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean anything, he was always easy to piss off. He acts like no one can see, but compare his attitude to a cat that subtly but visibly wants to tear a chunk off your ankle and you’ll never mistake a tell again.”

“Exactly.” Daisy leaned back, satisfied. “He ever, like, fling plates around at dinner?”

“No, he was more careful than that. Some of the other handmaidens would start fights with him, verbally. Much as you can get away with, considering the context. I never really understood why they’d try it, and in his defense he was always sort of ‘if you don’t start it with me we’ll all walk away fine,’ but some of the girls - not all, and they generally grew out of it over the years - had strange ideas about the power structure in the Queen’s tower. And also got snotty whenever it wasn’t Thor visiting.” She snorted.

“I mean, kinda fair.”

“There’s six museums in the palace alone, if we want to stare at something.” Kara flapped a hand. “But yeah, alright, kind of fair. Anyway, he’d usually cut off a verbal fight quick. But then things would… _happen_ … around that handmaiden for a while. Nothing too cruel or too dangerous, nothing you could point your finger at him and claim his blame. But it was if the skies opened and a petty sort of god had decided your life was going to be a small hell for a while. Things disappearing outright. Tools left in the wrong place, needing repair that isn’t spotted until picked up for use. A favorite dress torn in a way difficult but seldom impossible to mend, often just before a festival. One girl’s horse got the _ugliest_ trim from the farrier after knots appeared in its mane, she cried for days.” Kara shrugged. “Things like that. Manes grow out, annoyances fade. He never did anything permanent, and he seemed to have certain boundaries. The horse girl, you know, she’d spilled a pitcher of water on one of his spellbooks. On purpose.”

“No touchie the books. God, that _would_ have set him off.”

That got a giggle. “Yeah, I had to give him that one. No curses - Frigga would have his arse on a gold platter if he played that game, I wager - and no one woke up as a frog. But the message was clear. He’d always win his fights, eventually.”

“He ever get into it with you back then?”

“No.” The answer was quick. “My job was to be as invisible as possible, and give no one reason to question that I might be anything more than a handmaiden. I did my best, although early on it was a little difficult. I was brought in early from my order, I hadn’t completed all the finishing schools. The Queen liked that, felt I’d pass for a rougher sort from a, well, lesser family.” Kara looked rueful. “And I did, extremely well.”

“Some of the girls picked on you, too.” Daisy chuckled. “Man, why do all our worlds get the same crappy socialization?”

“Good damn question. But oh well, it’s the past. I’ve survived, I’ve got an interesting life, and, not to be petty, but Hel, let’s be petty, the meanest of the girls I remember married the most _boring_ sot in the galaxy. Some rock trader. Not even gems. _Rocks_. For Dwarvish architects. She doesn’t even get to enjoy the fancy parties she wanted to be titled so badly for, he’s always on business.” Kara looked satisfied by that, a fat and merry grin across her features.

“I knew a girl in the orphanage. Most of them were okay, and even the ones that weren’t, I hope they’re doing better now. Donna, though. I hope you’re dead in a fire.” Daisy grinned at Kara’s surprised look. “I motor past petty into vengeance fantasies sometimes. They’re just fantasies, though. I would never actually look her up.”

“No comment from this quarter.”

“Yeah, well, you _could_ do them in.” Daisy got up from her chair. “Hey. I just want to say? It was nice having a normal conversation. In _spaaaaaace_.”

Kara laughed, understanding. “So let’s wait for the world to set itself on fire next. Or again.”

“You got it.” Daisy gave her the classic finger guns. “I’m gonna go check on Phil. He’s probably pretending to be normal. Maybe Loki, too, by now.”

“Maybe,” said Kara, and now she sounded doubtful.


	13. You Can't Find Good Help These Days

“Unmarked corsair, Shi’ar type. Retrofitted cycle-shields. We expect it was being used a scouting vessel, based on its engine trail.” Most of Cull’s ground troops were Chitauri drones. Useful, programmable, eminently disposable. For complex air support, or really, anything that required more than three brain cells, Proxima had arranged for new Sakaaran mercenaries to support his forces. Just like the old days, under their watchful Father.

The mercs, too, were disposable, although they didn’t seem as aware of that fact. This one was reporting to Cull’s steady back, unaware of the rare sneer on the general’s face, unaware of the way those huge hands rested on the steel shaft of his multi-tool. It was already set to scythe mode, had been since dropping onto Travinta Three.

“We lost contact abruptly. It burst shields, purging our tracking. When the monitors cleared interference, it was gone.”

“Gone,” rumbled Cull. Easy to assume he was repeating the word like a senseless beast. A wiser sort would hear the rage hidden in the cold stone. Proxima, if she were here, would have stepped back. She knew the range of those mighty arms of his down to the millimeter.

“It couldn’t slip by us into a jump, sir. We had all gates locked down. It might still be in the asteroid fields. We’ve been sweeping since.”

“Gone,” said Cull again, this time its firmness indicating what should be clear to this idiot. _All_ jumps locked down. Utter nonsense. The universe was a mystery, grand and impossible, even under the Father’s dominating eyes. There _had_ been another jumpgate, and the scouting ship, obviously one of Loki’s, if not piloted by Loki himself, was now elsewhere. They had information, and Cull Obsidian had his worlds of silent corpses.

This would not help his beloved sister. Cull’s sneer became a wall of teeth, each one huge in his mouth, a deadly herbivore’s squared-off machines, with all the pressure of that massive set of jaws around them. He looked like he could take a hand off with those teeth alone. He had, more than once.

He swept around with a grace that looked alien to his observers, the scythe-blade of his weapon taking the mercenary’s head off with a cleanliness Cull thought he didn’t deserve. Those eyes filled with surprise as the lopped head rose into the air on its fatal arc, but were dull and empty by the time it rolled along the ground to rest against a merc captain’s metal tent.

Spirit didn’t move from the shadow of it, secure that the beast and his underlings wouldn’t see her. She watched Cull snarl at the headless body, then point the tip of the machine blade at the newly appointed replacement. “Subspace deep scans. _Find_ that hidden jumpgate.”

The flerken purred throatily to herself, pleased by Cull’s visible annoyance. So far, the general had nothing of value. The big man and his friend had gotten away clean, and by now her Nebula would have the information they’d been sent for. Now Spirit only had to worry about her own plan - ensure that Cull’s lack of information was consistent. A counter-intelligence operation of the sort only an invisible hand - all right, paw - could arrange.

And maybe add a little feline chaos to the mix, for a bonus.

. . .

Nebula knew what was going on around her port. It was her business to know things, so she ensured she would always be very good at it. For example, she knew exactly where her flerken was, and approved of it in a way that made her machine-enhanced heart ache a little. She knew that the one human was ill and the other frustrated, she knew the jotun captain was minding her own business because she didn’t know what else to do and wanted to stay out of the way while others figured it out. She knew Kara was flitting between all these points to try and keep everyone on an even keel, and found that an interesting bit of psychology. All those years serving. A diplomat or a warlord, a Queen or a monster. It rubbed off, whether one liked it or not. For all her own temper, Kara could soothe others when it counted.

Nebula had learned to lead from her monster. The other _lessons_ , well, their pains were fading. Finally.

And she knew exactly what Loki was up to. That was also interesting. For a man devoted to useful chaos, he sometimes became predictable when frantic. Internal chaos forced him into a kind of order. She’d seen it on Sanctuary, once or twice, back when she still hated as a function of survival. He was easy to track then. Even easier now, because he had identifiable things he cared about. They kept him on a certain path.

She stalked from her secured rooms to go find him before he finished the stupid thing he was up to, marching from her loft down through the central travel-core that was for her alone, and listened to him make a careful, quiet racket in the bay that Thor’s corsair would eventually return to.

Nebula gave him points. There were no alerts in the security system to tell her what she already knew, that when the corsair docked Loki would inject its system with an override, that the port would get locked out, and Thor, obviously, and then Loki would do the thing where he illusioned past his brother and got onto the ship and he’d go take off and get himself captured by Cull Obsidian. Where Loki probably had another stupid plan in mind, but once one looked that far in the future, things tended to fall apart, and oh, they would, and then they’d all be in the shit.

Nebula realized, mostly by the growl in her throat and the way her stalking sped up, that she was getting mad at him. Before, that would end with a knife in her hand.

She supposed it was an upgrade that she wound up charging into the bay, taking Loki utterly by surprise as she pinned him to the reinforced wall of the bay next to the console he was dicking with. Her arm had been recently upgraded with three stabilized rods of repurposed Titan-forge adamantium reinforcing her skeleton underneath the skin layer, and it had cost her, to be financially accurate, a _shit-ton_ of credits.

It did its job. It held Loki firm, her wrist lodged just under his adam’s apple, her knuckles and elbow creating a narrow trap even he wasn’t going to get out of. At least, not for a couple of minutes. Long enough to knock sense into him.

There were tactical ways to tell him what she needed to say. Rational, clear, and easy to follow. She’d been doing it for a couple of years now. Not her first intel op. She’d dealt with intractable idiots before. Nebula opened her mouth to begin a careful dressing down and instead started to bellow hot, metal-heated air into his face. “You _stupid_ , selfish, thoughtless, _limp_ - _minded_ waste of flesh! You _absolute_ fucking pile of dead brain cells! What in _hell_ are you thinking?! _Are_ you thinking? Do you just _think_ you’re thinking?”

“Hi, Nebula,” Loki gurgled back, a wrist coming up to try and get the clamp off his throat. He found no purchase.

“If you tear off on your own, you _will_ get caught. You _will_ be doomed, and you will put everyone else in danger. You _fucking_ well know this. We have _already_ had this conversation, but now you’re down here thinking the stakes have changed with the latest report.”

“They have!” He half-choked on the response, the skin around his eyes going whiter as he fought to get a breath back.

“ _THEY HAVE NOT_!” She roared it into his face from about an inch away, not caring if it drew every other soul on her port. Fuck it, line up Tam’s druffs, have them score the match. “Everyone is aware of the stakes but you! You keep thinking you’re worthless, that you can make the sacrifice play and keep everyone else off the corpse pile, but that is _not_ how this is gonna work! Not this time!”

Her other fist banged into the wall an inch away from his head. He looked sideways at the deep dent, not blinking. “Everyone knows this but _you_. You have _got_ to stop it. Right now, while we’re dealing with the one who fights up front. Because if you’re still acting like this when Proxima, or Maw, or whoever that bitch the Swan is, you are meat, kiddo, and _we_ are all dead.” She kept pushing that wrist into his throat, knocking the back of his head into the wall to make damn sure his attention was on her. It was. He was quiet now, staring at her, wide-eyed. “All the people you think you’re trying to save from yourself. All of your friends. All of _us_.”

The bay remained empty, otherwise. Just the two of them, and the echo of skull against steel.

And then, bitter and hurt, he responded. “Why do you care?”

She pulled her wrist away from his neck. If he ran, if he fought back, this would be the moment. “I don’t know.” She looked away, at the empty place where the corsair would have been. “I hate caring. I wish I didn’t.” She still didn’t look at him, figuring out why she had bothered to shout at him. Why _did_ she care?

She knew after all, she supposed. She just didn’t like to think about it. It was still difficult. But it was because of Gamora. Because of all of it. Everything they survived. Everything she’d learned about herself, the years after it was finally over. Only to find out nothing was over. Not yet. “Thanos made all of us into his broken little _family_. He did it for his own reasons. Those generals still call him ‘father,’ did you know that? I keep not putting it in my briefings. It’s not even in my files. It’s disgusting. It pisses me off every time I hear it. He wasn’t a father, he was a monster, and he was _proud_ of being a monster. He thought that was better than being anything else. Anyone else.

“We weren’t his children. We were pets, tools. Weapons. You know that perfectly well, Loki. Those _assholes_ , they’re happy to be. They like what that means. They want to recreate all of that, somehow. Right down to using us as sacrifices. Right down to the infinity stones, if possible.” She looked at Loki, feeling something snap inside of her head as she locked a stare with him. A snap that felt right somehow, a broken part clicking back into place. Gears matching up with the right teeth. “We survived it once. Each of us, on our own at first. But putting ourselves back together? Facing Thanos?” She turned back towards him, facing him properly. “None of us did that alone. Did we?”

Loki studied her, his body slumped against the wall. But his eyes were sharp.

“I had Gamora, and she had me. Sisters, even before you came along, even though I didn’t understand. Not until later. You had your friends. Figured out some of this crap with your family back home, from what I hear. But this time out, it doesn’t have to be the same. If the generals want to play repeats, fine. _I_ don’t. I’ve got people to watch out for. And in a shitty little way, despite what _he_ tried to make out of us, I guess we’re like a family, too. All three of us. The survivors. Better than what he wanted to make. Alive.”

Now she was almost pleading, mad at herself for it, all for the truth of it. “And I want to _stay_ like that.”

He reached up and rubbed his throat where she’d had him pinned. “I’m listening. I hear you. I’ll stop.”

“Good. One more thing. While you’re listening.” She stepped towards him, growling it with long-held satisfaction. “You were a _prick_ , back in Sanctuary. Fuck you.”

“Yes, I was. It’s a fair cop.” He surprised her with a laugh, small and tired but genuine enough. She realized her anger at him was already mostly gone. What they’d all been in Sanctuary was unforgettable. But it was also the past. “Got it out of your system?”

“Eat my cybernetic ass.” She knuckled towards the console. “Uninstall that program before I do it manually. With your forehead.”

“Fine.”

“ _Fine_ ,” she said pettily, as if he really was her tantrumy little brother. She watched him reset the system and pull the tiny chip out he was using for upload. To a little more of her surprise, he handed it to her. She crunched it between two tungsten-strong fingers. “No more games. We’re in this together. And for once, _try_ to follow someone else’s lead.”

Loki nodded. He didn’t look as defeated as he might’ve, which bothered her. But then she understood, he looked contemplative. Maybe even understanding.

Maybe he actually _had_ listened.

It might be a first.

She still doubted it, though. After all, this was Loki.

They were still mulling the moment over when the comm-chime went off in her auxilo-auditory neuro-package. “Yeah?” She looked up as the response came in, surprised. “Yeah, I’ll put it through on command deck.” She gestured sharply at Loki, telling to follow her. “Tam, bring everyone in to the office. Priority message.” She cut out and looked back at him as she led the way. “It’s the Queen of Jotunheim.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the story is complete on my end, posting schedules will speed up a little from here. 
> 
> As I am extremely well aware of what people are going through during this time, please, I hope fanfic and fandom can still be a little escapism waiting here for when you're ready for it. Take care of yourselves, I really do love you all, and may you get home safe every night.


	14. The Queen's Speech

Fatline and transpo are the two most common methods of conversation between points in deep space. They both build on the fundamentals set by old timey radio communication. Fatlines are designed to be stable, their signals built up through planetary network facilities (partially made up of hundreds of miles of cables tightly bound together, hence, ‘fat’ lines), and can carry encoded transmissions between other such established worlds and ships capable of accepting fatline, friendly or otherwise. These kinds of reliable comms are one of the dominant signs of a civilization prepared to engage in spaceflight. Transponder signal comms are based on repeaters, echoing chaotically off ships and solid objects, dubious wreckage, and buoys left in space. They’re slightly iffier, less easily tracked, and also much more commonly used.

The Nine Realms have only recently begun to bother with any of this. There _is_ a new fatline facility growing in Asgard’s spaceport, of course, but there are still dozens of young heralds and zippy little ships on standby, doing it all the incredibly old fashioned way.

Jotunheim, meanwhile, has been regarded for centuries as entirely uninterested in neither. In all the annals of their wars, King Laufey’s voice has never been recorded on a transponder signal, nor did his moulded stone boots ever touch the steel grates of a ship. No signal at all has ever seemingly escaped the icy atmosphere of what Asgard left ignored as a purposefully barbaric world.

And that is just the way the shamans (and certain of their more ambitious merchants) have always liked it.

. . .

Farbauti’s initial connection signal came through the fatline network like normal, but then caused an error message that Nebula had never seen before. Tam took over without any argument from her, canceling certain disruptive audio feeds and then silently bolting in a new comms subroutine package from her ship. This caused the digitable to blank for a moment, then cycle through a reboot of its visual programs. Sigils flashed as it fired back up, things that made Loki blink in recognition. A little magic, mixed neatly with the mundane.

Queen Farbauti herself filled the vidfeed a moment later, a virtually untraceable holo-effect. She stood on a dais etched with matching signals - a Great Work of artifact magic. Another long-kept jotun secret. She regarded her audience as regally as ever, the icy-blue hologram of her lessening the power of her physical presence not a jot. “Slipspace Port Nebula. Command Ship Wolf-in-Gray-Ice. I am formally authorizing the jotun fleet to assist in the operation against Unassigned Sector 4194X, called the Triuum.

“This specifically includes combat operations, first strike operations, harry-and-disable operations, and all other operations decided as necessary for the duration of conflict. Prisoner guidelines are at your discretion. We have assessed the information collated by your scouting forces, Port Nebula, and agree with all conclusions. We denounce General Cull Obsidian’s actions against the Triuum, we denounce all prior actions by his troops, and we will not stand by and allow him to turn his weapons onto our world, nor any world after us.”

Farbauti let her announcement hang in the air for a moment, before ending the most formal part of her speech and becoming gentler. “Captain Hrymi, I personally give you my leave to explain to Prince Thor the full intent behind our intervention here.” For a moment, it seemed like there was something else the Queen wanted to say, a silence that lingered too long. Then she regathered. Something changed in the hologram as she continued on, a notification on a side screen informing the port that this was now a message meant for one audience. “Slipspace Port Nebula.”

“Your Majesty,” said Tam. “We’re here.”

“Certainly. Prince Thor and Captain Hrymi will be managing dominant action from here. I suspect you will end up arranging a smaller strike, if a way to draw out the primary target can be found. I don’t expect the General to see the end of this week, alive. Not with your lot in play.”

“Majesty,” said Kara, wry. “May I take that as not only and advisory but a consent to assassination by a power with the right to authorize?”

“Naturally, Lady Kara. And the Prince, too, will no doubt find a way to be involved, after all. It seems to be… habitual, with our blood.” She glanced directly at Loki, making it clear that the visual feed was, in fact, two way. “You should be aware that this move will create greater ripples under the water than are yet seen.”

“The other generals?” he asked her.

Farbauti shook her head. “This shadow is much closer to home. Any new action beyond our atmosphere will be seen as a mercy, a greater shape of some growing jotun weakness. Another kind of enemy will be emboldened to act before their time. This is both troublesome, and a benefit. Neither of us will be yet at full power, but fortunately for our world, _I_ fare quite well under duress.”

Understanding dawned on Loki, threading together vague hints from other conversations he’d had in the private but recent past. “The civil war you’ve been preparing for.”

Tam jerked, looking freshly nervous. Kara put a hand on her upper arm.

“Yes. That.” Farbauti put a hand up, as if to comfort her audience. “This has already entered my calculations. I only mention it to prepare you. Captain Hrymi has been long waiting for the day the fleet is called home. It draws close now, and lest you, Prince, go away thinking this is some new burden of yours to bear, I should tell you that she might well thank you for it.”

Loki’s face closed, taking that as a secret to consider.

The regal blue hand flapped the conversation away, a personal gesture. “Enough, then. Lady Nebula.”

“Ma’am.”

“I’ve authorized an additional line of credit to your public accounts through a private channel Tam will be able to verify for you, for this service and potentially for future services. Do not consider it any form of ownership or obligation, it is merely owed. You’ve become a capable eye. We’ll need more of those up there, seeing whatever it is you see. Say I am _investing_. Do with that knowledge what you will.” The Queen nodded, all business again. “Good luck. May the ancient ice ever betray your enemy’s steps.”

The feed ended.

. . .

Captain Hrymi pulled away from her command desk, her eyes half-lidded in thought. “My sister is waging heavily on our joint future, Your Highness.”

“I strive to be worthy of that wager, Captain,” said Thor. “My father has finally become well-aware that the old ways and old wars are not the best path ahead. And from my brother, I’ve learned that change is not something to fear.”

A small smile played at her face, even as she looked weary and still a little concerned. “Good words. I’ve never heard you were meant to be much of a talker, Highness, but you’re learning, and she’s listening. I’ll have to trust in that. And I do.” She lifted her head, now giving him an even regard. “All right. Lady Bryn, I dodged a question of yours earlier. About the dangers of a bombing campaign on Jotunheim.” She hesitated, a doubt still flickering through her eyes.

“The Queen gave you leave to answer a question, Captain,” said Bryn. “Doesn’t mean you’re obligated to.”

Hrymi looked askance at the Valkyrie, oddly pleased by the remark. “True. But the answer, if you have eyes to see, a heart to listen, will explain a little more of _why_ it matters that we will risk our exposure for this cause. And why the risk is much more than you’ve guessed.”

She beckoned for them both to follow her. “It’s a bit of a walk from here. We’re going deep into my ship. And bear in mind, we’ve two others like this one.” She looked sorrowful. “Only two.”

. . .

The corridors of the jotun carrier were generic enough at first. As the trio passed homely, well-used halls, the temperature went down a few degrees - not enough to freeze, but only to keep a brisk and familiar liveliness in the air - and the walls began to display sprawling murals across smoothed steel. No archaic cave art or brutalist stripes, these were grand works of colorful history. Blues, greens, and riotous purple made the halls feel richer, almost worldbound. “Family lines,” said Hrymi, not stopping. “We don’t really have a way to make our tapestries here, or mark perma-ice, so we turned to painting instead. Keep ourselves grounded to home.” She barked a small, knowing laugh. “When I was younger, keeping the crew from accidentally getting high off the fumes was a real bitch. We re-invented six different atmosphere systems to deal with it. Now we have the cleanest ship air in any fleet in the sector. I’d wage my captain’s hat on it.”

Past the residency halls were atmosphere controls, and Thor marveled at them. They were massive, impossibly so, and he began to realize there was a growing moisture in the air. The walls became sealed plas and carefully welded steel layered with transparencies to keep mold out of crucial systems.

And still they went down, past other ship structures. Until he reckoned they truly were in the heart of the ship. There was a massive set of doors, and they were guarded by two larger jotun. Not warriors, they held no weapons. Shamans, kneeling on beautiful old rugs from home, smelling like herbs and something else Thor couldn’t name. From nearby, the smells of warm fur and burning candles.

“What is this?” whispered Bryn to him. He shook his head. He had no idea.

“Captain,” said one of the shaman, in jotun tongue.

“Child of the Eye.” She nodded to him. “Queen’s word.”

“We trust in the Queen, and we trust in the Queen’s blood,” said the shaman to her, and he reached up to press a hand to the door control.

Beyond was a cave.

No, thought Thor, helplessly, his vision struggling to take in the massive structure anchored within the core of a space ship. Beyond was a _miracle_.

He knew, intellectually, that under the frozen, nearly lifeless surface of Jotunheim was an underground network of caves and other tunnel structures. He knew from their books that jotun sometimes lived along the edges of these caves instead of banding together in tribes on the ice, that there were edible mosses and fungi, that some textile and color work came from whatever lived in the depths. He knew now that he knew _nothing_.

Had Loki learned something of these mysteries since? Thor wondered, decided it was entirely possible, then realized that, for the first time, he felt a strangely gentle envy of Loki.

The cave thrummed, alive with flora and fauna of types Thor had never seen. There were computerized panels along the sides of the door, and he scanned them, reading the summary details of what lay deeper within. There were massive spiders somewhere deep inside where bioluminescence marked strange trails, but they were semi-sentient and harmless to those they considered friendly. Shamans went to them to retrieve raw silk and certain venoms used for potions and magic, by mutual consent and old pacts. Elsewhere were mobile parasitical fungi that could be harvested for both food and ritual psychedelics without harming the core creature. Moss, yes, some of which were edible, some were rare dyes, some which became sacred incense. And so much more. An entire, carefully balanced ecosystem, a slice of Jotunheim’s secret heart, preserved here.

Most of them were rare now, said these scans. And there were so many other details that went by too fast for Thor to comprehend.

“Laufey’s damned war imbalanced our world. Asgard’s retaliation nearly destroyed it,” said Hrymi, quiet. Down in a tiny, cool-smelling crevice was a creek lined with fuzzy stones, and a trio of children were sitting along its banks. Their feet stayed in the water, kicking gently, and one of the girls looked up to wave to the captain. There was a wolf pup at her side, sleepy-eyed and downy, already the size of a midsized Earth car. Hrymi waved back. “The ecological damage alone might take centuries to stabilize.

“When my Ma’mah sent us out to gather ships, she had a second, even more secret mission in mind. If at all possible, create a system to speed up that healing process. Or at the very least, ensure that we would have a second chance to save what we have left. So we’ve done, piecing all of this together bit by bit over years. She didn’t predict the near-genocide a decade ago, the way the Yggdrasil storms sent by Asgard cracked open parts of our surface. But with her forethought, granting forgiveness for the Prince’s mistake has been made vastly easier.” Here, the captain had a look of pure peace on her face. No hostility or judgment left. “We endure.”

“It’s beautiful,” was all Bryn said, reverently.

“This is our home,” said Hrymi. “Just as Jotunheim is our home. One and the same, if separate today. Some other day, it will all be whole again. This is a sacred work. And to protect that rejoined future, the Queen has accepted the burden of a great risk.”

Thor understood now, almost aching for all the things he hadn’t known when he was young and thought of himself as only a great god of war and future king, taught to see the giants as something only to fight whenever necessary. “If we lose even one of your capital ships, we lose an irreplaceable piece of your world.”

“Yes. And if Cull Obsidian gets past us and bombs Jotunheim, he will outright destroy any chance of us rebuilding what’s left for millennia. If not forever. So there’s no question for us, not really.” Hrymi nodded. “One way or another, Prince Thor, this is our vow. The Generals of Thanos will _never_ step foot on our ice.”

Vows were risky, especially for princes. Someday, Thor knew, someday very soon he would be a King, and vows would become outright dangerous. Still, he’d spent a long time learning what was right, and when such risks were necessary. Anger hit him, a useful warrior’s anger. “My vow, Captain, is to ensure they don’t ever get close enough to even breathe on your people.”

“Fuck _breathing_ ,” said Bryn, irreverent from years of drunken freedom and turning hot with a fury that said she understood what he saw in a way perhaps even he couldn’t. “They get to maybe bleed out in the regional system at best.”

Captain Hrymi clapped her on the shoulder and gave Thor a welcoming smile, her first full true one. “ _Now_ we sound like a pack of proper warriors.” She laughed. “My ancient shaman ancestors would shudder at the thought, but today we understand. Sometimes there is no choice but to stand with weapons in hand, instead of old wisdom behind our teeth.”

“Pragmatism is the first sharp blade a Valkyrie learns to wield,” said Bryn.

“Damn well said.” Hrymi gestured back the way they came with a roaring laugh. “Now. Let’s go draw up a proper attack run and get the jump on these bastards. For all our sakes.”


	15. Still the Same

Nebula smirked at Loki, hanging back after the Queen’s announcement to examine the information coming in from Thor and the fleet. He pretended to not notice, so she went for the full-on jab. “So much for your big idea to hijack the corsair. Your brother’s on a war footing for the long haul. What was gonna be _your_ Plan B to get out there and be stupid?”

He traced through a handful of new documents, looking at the preliminary tactics for the ground strike at Travinta Three, and he didn’t say anything.

“Come on. You know better than to grab Tam’s ship. Too far, too unknown even for you to make a magical portal or whatever. Gamora would make sure Rocket didn’t play along. What would you have done?”

Loki, just to piss her off, began to hum softly.

She rolled her eyes and kicked the underside of the table, turning it off. He switched it back on, the information autosaved to his last location. “We’re going to have a fight if I answer you.”

She snorted. “Far too late. Spill it.”

He arched an eyebrow and gave her a wry, knowing glance. “Slipspace ports have an emergency mode for rapid escape, based on the same flight protocols that let them get into position. Even with a ship locked to bay.”

Nebula stared at him. “You couldn’t have.”

“Your security package is good, my usual lockpick set couldn’t find the right codeset. Because it’s a custom kit, though, I looked for a bash through Chitauri half-binary coding, and then fed the results through a Zen-Whoberi translation. Gamora’s language, now all but lost. You’d use her as a backup plan, of course. If something happened to you, she’d be able to log in and seek revenge on your behalf.” He shrugged. “You should cut off the emergency mode from the program package, set it to another keycode entirely. Share it with her alone.”

“Son of a _bitch_.” She crossed her arms, snorting out an infuriated but impressed laugh. “I’ll do that, though.”

Loki finished transferring the latest batch of files to his datapad and gave her a glance before heading for the door. “What will you do after this? Assuming we’re successful and Cull Obsidian is stopped?”

“There’s more Generals. More of their shit to lock down.” Nebula looked steadily at him. “That’s not going to change, not for a while.”

He looked back, his face unreadable.

Nebula allowed a shrug. “Might spend some of the Queen’s money, establish an eye over Jotunheim. Just might.”

“Mm,” said Loki, neutrally.

“Not that I’d be caught dead doing anything extra to help someone like _you_.” It was a good time to examine a fingernail for chips, pretending nothing else mattered. It would be a bad time to point out that her fingernails weren’t organic and thus, didn’t actually need that much inspection.

“Of course. And the money will always be good.”

“If the Queen can spin a deal half as well as you can…”

“Better, probably.”

There _was_ a tiny particle of dirt under the ring finger’s nail. She pried at it with a thumbnail while he watched. “Besides, I’m sure our mutual _friends_ will get wound up in the whole thing anyway. Drag me along.”

“A dreadful fate,” he deadpanned.

“But I’ll be able to afford one of those nice sleeper bays they sell out by Xandar. Ra’kiar silks. Get ‘em in any color I like.” She put her hand down and smiled at him, obnoxiously fake.

“Blue, I expect.” Loki lifted the datapad in his hand and waggled it at her. “Maybe some nice purple highlights. I’ll be off. Being useful. Quietly, of course.”

“No more dumb bullshit from you.” She made it sound like a threat.

“No, Nebula, if I do something stupid, I expect I’ll have to have the full allowance and assistance of everyone around me, and how much of a hassle is that?” He rolled his eyes theatrically and left.

Nebula stared at the empty doorway for a few seconds, then said to herself, grumpy and fully aware, “Not enough to keep you from doing it, I’m pretty damn sure.”

. . .

Daisy caught Coulson heading for the residences again, trying to be subtle about the fact that he was still only able to handle the brief hour in Nebula’s office before needing to chill in a dark, quiet place. She waited until he was inside, but hadn’t shut the door. “That potion help any?”

Coulson sighed as he turned around and sat on the cushioned cot inside. She could tell he was still a little pale and dazed from pain. “Daisy…”

“How long have you been fighting these? Come on. I’m not dumb, Coulson, you know I’m not really a ditz anymore.”

“You never were.” He rubbed his hands on his knees. “You always showed off in a way that let people underestimate you. That was obvious from the start. Even that crappy van you used to have hid a lot. SHIELD found something good when we picked you up. I’ve never regretted it.”

“Oh god, you feel that crappy?” She managed to make it sound like a joke. It was only half of one.

He peered at her, the fading headache still making him a bit slow on the pickup.

“ _You_ know. It’s a final speech trope. The heartwarming monologue between the teacher-archetype and their student, just before the mentor goes off to get killed to save something, leaving the student behind to carry on the work.” She pointed at him accusingly. “ _Star Wars_ does it like _all_ the time. Ever since Obi Wan.”

Coulson rolled his eyes. “I’m not about to drop dead. You’re not gonna be Director anytime soon.”

“Thank _god_.”

“Mack will be taking the chair early next year, though. But I’m planning on seeing you in it after him.”

“Ah, beans.” She crossed her arms against herself, rubbing as if she’d suddenly caught a chill. “But are you feeling better?”

“Yeah. Yeah, the potion… I don’t know, Kara told me when I asked, but it was like getting an answer out of Loki on something really granular that he knows a lot about it. There sure were some words in there.” Coulson managed a laugh, still looking extremely tired.

“She probably felt like that when I had to tell her what the Framework thingie was about.” She grimaced at Coulson’s look. “It went over better than expected, at least.”

He fell back against the wall. “She was in there?”

“ _You_ didn’t know?” Daisy blinked at him. “Wow, Loki actually kept one from ya. Yeah, I saw her in the embassy, she - well, the AI version of her - helped us escape and get back to you.”

“I feel like there’s a lot of that story everyone missed.”

Daisy shrugged dismissively. “The Framework sucked. Why obsess over it? But like… I’m still worried about you, Coulson. Are you really going to be okay?”

“I’m fine, Daisy.” He sighed. “I know that doesn’t seem like the full truth, and it’s a fact that I’m not gonna be Director for as long as anyone wants. I’m on the way out - as a team player - but I’m still going to be here, rooting for everyone. Doing my part, just… more quietly.”

“As a civ.”

“Eventually, yeah. And beyond that, for how long, nobody really knows yet. It’s the wild west in my head, Daisy. I’m not Inhuman, and the way I came back was pretty messy. I’m lucky, I’ve knit together and held together okay, considering, but that’s not forever.” He smiled. “Not much is, but I’ve had a lot more than I was supposed to get.”

She leaned in the doorway, then dropped onto the cot next to him. His words sounded practiced, like he’d gone over them before. She put it together and took the only guess. “So… how did Loki take the news?”

“Not great. Which was understandable. He didn’t find out until just before we took off on this, either.”

“Did he dig or did you just open up and tell him?”

“Both, kinda. He noodled that something was up. I think I came off a little _too_ ‘puppy wants a ride in the car’ to play it away clean, and deep down I probably wanted to tell him sooner rather than later, anyway.”

Daisy laughed. “Yeah, but we _all_ love riding in a car with Loki, so to speak. The scenery is terrific.”

“One of a kind.” He laughed, too, and maybe it was just coincidence, but the pressure in his head seemed to finally ease. At least for now. “Did you hear Nebula rip into him earlier?”

“Kara said this place echoes bird poots on purpose. I heard every word. Man, she went in on him.”

“She was right to. He’s gotta get it in his head _eventually_.”

“Think it’ll be today?”

Coulson shook his head, the tension in his neck easing off, too. “No.”

. . .

Kara didn’t bother to look back, sensing the unwanted arrival in the cargo hold of Tam’s ship. She continued to lock in the additional energy cell she was wrangling, satisfying herself with the way the steel bolts clanked into position. When she was done, she glanced at him with a silent but intensely clear warning on her face and grabbed the second one, getting to work on securing that one, too.

“I want to be on the field,” Loki said anyway, sounding like he knew he was about to get socked in the face and was braced for it.

“Of _course_ you do,” said Kara to the energy cell, thunking it into position a mite bit harder than what its buddy had endured. “Didn’t Nebula shout at you enough? Do I have to take a spin on the shitehead wheel of classically Asgardian stubbornness, too?”

The silence felt unusually taken aback. “I think I liked it better when you were sarcastically referring to me by old titles.”

“No take-backs.” She finished bolting the cell in and rested her forehead on the bulkhead wall. “If I scream you down, weighted with all the exhaustion that merely looking at you sometimes gives me, will that be _finally_ enough? Or shall I inform Tam she’s probably next in line and to lock down the pilot controls?”

“I’m not here to start an argument. I’m not. It’s simply tactics. You’re not a standup fighter, Kara. Your blades aren’t meant for the open field. Mine are. I can hold Cull in position, and we all damn well know I’m good bait. He’s going to entrench when the strafing starts, otherwise. His troops are disposable. He’ll bunker until he misses a check-in with the other generals and then the Maw will slip through and portal him out. I’ve run the scenarios. You can check my work. He’ll get through, and we’ll win a delay, but not take the victory.”

“If he entrenches, that’s where I get in.”

“You can’t take him like that. Even if you get through his bunker defenses - and I wager you can in any number of ways, I find it suspicious that Nebula’s flerken has disappeared - he’s going to be fully alert, waiting, in a room with no corners to hide in, nor shadows to cloak. There will be no angle for an assassination, and the _second_ he sees you, that’s an overwhelming advantage for him.”

A single footstep in her direction. She still didn’t look back at him, didn’t twitch when he spoke again. “You will die.”

“Might still take him with me,” she said, hating the reluctance in her voice. The annoying bastard was right.

“ _Might_ isn’t enough value for that level of sacrifice.” He stayed where he was. “A careful bombing campaign from an unknown force is a damn good start. It _will_ infuriate him, anger him to the edge of carelessness. If the profile on his relationship with Proxima is correct, he’ll do what I assume is her bidding right up until he sees a win he can carry home to her _despite_ her urgings for caution. He sees me take a visible role, he’s out of his cave like a mad badger. All for her.”

“That’s a hell of a risk.”

“Then you’d best do your job,” he said flatly. “Once he’s focused on me, that’s an exposed back fine and fitly prepared for your _particular_ talents.”

She absorbed that for a while, running through variant scenarios in her head. To his irritating credit, most of them ended with her knife cutting through those most vital neck arteries. Only a few lost the defensive target, a set of rare futures where every single thing went wrong. The favorable odds were very good. “You’re assuming Tam will even be flying into the combat operation zone.”

“Of course she will be. Nebula’s going to want to run an assessment for future operations at minimum, and this runner is small and slight enough to help jam comms and halt individual fighters.” He walked up next to her and knocked on the walls next to the cells she’d just installed. “Good try, but these aren’t engine cells. They’re top quality backups for the ship’s weapons.” He looked down at her. “Tam, too, would have been on a higher alert after helping us. This ship shows off its entire history of adapting to new situations. Daisy never saw the weapons array you were handling earlier, when we were aboard last. Because they are freshly installed.”

“How many times a year do you get hit for being right and also being exhausting? Because I reckon it’s not enough.”

“Mostly they’re used to me on Earth these days. Built up a tolerance. The occasional couch pillow chucked at my head. A lot of annoyed sighs.” He arched an eyebrow at her look. “You’ve put up with the royal family for nigh on a millennia and we still piss you off this easily? That’s interesting.”

Kara rolled her eyes at him. “I’ve never entertained murder fantasies about the Queen.”

“No, just me and Odin. Mostly Odin.”

“Can you blame me, considering?”

“Not really, but I do like exacerbating problems on occasion. Keeps it lively.”

Kara puffed a sigh and pushed herself away from the cell keep, crossing her arms against herself and eyeing him carefully. “All right. It’s a consideration. But we’ve got to see what the field looks like in play, first. Much of this is moot if we can’t nail down their camps and their tracking. It’s a very probable consideration, though, I’ll allow.”

“I didn’t see anything about that from Thor’s plans. Is that Nebula’s angle?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “You’re right about the cat. She’s infiltrated the camp and working on sabotage pressure points. Nebula got word from her a little while ago, they weren’t able to get any ID on Thor’s ship, nor track its outgoing. They’re riled, and Cull isn’t happy. We hit them with a fleet within the next twelve hours while they’re off balance, and Spirit kills their comms table and gets out. Plus whatever else she’s got hidden in her fur.”

Loki shook his head, looking bemused. “When I was asked for advice about what to do about an incoming boodle of alien kittens, I never expected this down the line. Spy cats and fuzzy mages that can glorp their way around the universe with every hairball.”

“You’re teaching yours _magic_?” Kara couldn’t stop herself from looking stunned. “Aren’t sorcerers like you bad enough? Now you’re making a _cat_ like you, too?”

“She was already picking through my books when she thought I wasn’t noticing, at least now she’s getting proper training.” Loki grinned. “She got a little blue Kamar-Tajian fabricwound-belt with dangly runekits on it from an acquaintance of mine, it’s distressingly adorable. And it jingles.”

“I don’t see any of this ending well.”

“Probably not, but that’s normal kits, too, and it’s the sort of mayhem I explicitly approve of.” He shrugged and turned to leave her alone, but he paused for a second. Kara waited for something else cutting or dryly sarcastic as a temporary farewell. That’s not what she received. “I… don’t know why you bothered to take Odin’s request. Considering. But I appreciate the attempt, even if I didn’t seem to much care for being blindsided.” One more pause. “And thank you for trying to break the news about Glaive in a moderate way.”

“It was for her,” said Kara to his back, forever unable to stop aching at her memories of the Queen. “Always for her.”

“Yes,” said Loki, finally walking away. “It is.”


	16. The Calm Before

Captain Hrymi watched the board go green, every harrier, runner, and single pilot fighter that had been accepted for the operation bolted and locked in the various bays of the three carriers. Their destroyer fleet, all of it, ten massive vessels in the top shape of their career, had taken full protective positioning around the carrier trio. Only a few ships were remaining behind, to hold their territory and to ensure the comms repeaters stayed live between the fleet.

“What’s the status of Singer Ice?” she asked her second.

The young jotun woman didn’t look up from her command console. “The destroyer is fully prepared and on plan. All crew repositioned.”

“That hairy little bastard better be right about finding us a replacement.” Hrymi checked the destroyer’s uplink strength herself. “I’ve never heard anything about the Milano’s infamous little crew that didn’t come with a nervous warning attached to the back end of it.”

“They’ve saved the galaxy twice,” said Thor.

“According to themselves,” said Hrymi, dryly. “Might even be true, but the collateral damage isn’t impressive to this eye.”

“The rabbit is an excellent scavenger, my brother’s friends have bought from him before. He’ll bargain well.”

“He’ll bargain for shite, types like him.” Hrymi relented, her tone audibly easing off. “But at the end of it, aye, we’ll get another destroyer. Won’t be the first time, never be the last. Drone program triple-checked?”

“Is, mum,” said the second. “All clear, full signal lock.”

Hrymi inhaled, the prickly nervousness that came before a battle not something that ever went away. “Your ship’s about ready to launch with the rest, then, Prince.” She stepped away from her captain’s control desk and turned to him, reaching out a hand. “An honor to meet the future King of Asgard.”

“An honor to be shown the heart of Jotunheim, when our people veiled itself easily to it with our hate. I look forward to continuing to help repair that blindness.” He clasped her hand, finding it nearly as strong as his and a good measure larger.

Hrymi smiled, a quick and fleeting hunter’s look. “Mutual enemies are always a damn good start, I find. We began this era with Laufey, even if your kind didn’t quite understand that at the time. Today we stand again against another. And like our Laufey, he will fall to be one day forgotten.”

“For the sake of a prince of both our realms.” Thor nodded, then gave back a warrior’s cheery grin of his own. “Let’s tear them apart.”

. . .

Daisy kept her hands off the backup pilot controls and watched Tam scan her board. “Bet you wish we’d brought Ross with us.”

Tam didn’t look up from her work. “He was a good fella. Fast learner, aye. He doing alright?”

“He’s good. Lot of government agencies are a little flaky right now, things are being kind of rough on Earth in these really crappy but I guess to you mundane ways? He’s doing his best to not fall into that.”

“Nothing mundane about a world gone topsy-turv.” Tam snorted as she finalized the unlock and launch program. “Anyway, you’re as quick on the uptake, Miss. You’re gonna do the unbolt since you’re sitting here with me.” Tam looked up and pointed at a blinking set of controls on the upper right. “Program’s already locked in, on my mark, all you’ve got to do is pull the lever on the indicator. It’s chunky, meant for my hands, but it’ll move fine if you give it a good yank.”

Daisy looked at the control and braced herself. “‘K. Hey, all those jotun ships have names, does this one?”

“Course.” Tam grinned. “I named mine for my wolf.”

“You have a _wolf_?” Daisy whipped her head around in fresh awe.

“I do. Not all jotun have one, of course, used to be more of a warrior thing. But my mother made sure I was adopted one as a child, y’know, for the responsibility. He’s on the home carrier right now, I haven’t had time the last few months to give him what he needs aboard here.” Tam smiled fondly. “He’s a brat, bred smaller for us spacer-sized folk. I can ride him just fine, though, and he loves Kara almost as well. Sweet Boy.”

Daisy missed the emphasis. “What’s the name?”

“Just said. Sweet Boy. _Svast’baerhn_ , on the shiplogs.”

“You have a big jotun direwolf and you basically just straight up named him Sweetie.” Daisy couldn’t tell if she was flabbergasted or charmed half to death by the cute.

“Damn right. Nothing good comes of a war-wolf named Face-Chewer Corpsefucker, I mean, at that point, the wolf’s gonna feel like it’s got britches to fill and it _will_.”

“….Yeah.” She blinked. “Yeah, I mean I guess that makes sense.”

“Hey, you want to hear a joke?” Tam leaned over conspiratorially. “What was the name of Laufey’s war-wolf?”

“I don’t know, what was it?”

“Wolf. _Varg’ir_.” Tam threw her head back and laughed. “Seriously. Boring arsehole.”

Daisy snickered. “Dude really sounds like he was a bunch of recessive genes packed in a loincloth.”

“Girl, from your lips to the singers in the sky. Cousin doesn’t act a thing like him. Bless the way genetics leap about.” Tam jerked her chin at the lever and turned back to all business. “On my mark.”

. . .

Nebula was alone in her ops office, her mouth clamped shut hard enough to make her lips nearly disappear. In her mind, so many annoyed vulgarities scrolled by that they would be more easily transcribed by classic comic book symbols. Daggers and pound signs and ampersands bounded by fluffy dirt clouds, all of it translating roughly into _murder murder murder murder_.

Loki was outbound on Tam’s ship, because of-fucking-course he was. Worse, Nebula had to agree with Kara’s reluctant assessment. The plan was a good one, so long as the support play could handle the exposed target. She had faith in Kara, having worked intel for the Asgardian for most of a year already, and as _blindingly_ stupid as Loki himself could be, he was also nearly impossible to defeat, much less kill, in the long term. It would work, even though it shouldn’t, and was the man going to learn the crucial lesson he needed from all of this?

She had her doubts.

If they had to go through this again with Loki the next time one of the Generals came out openly to play, she just might let Proxima _have_ his ass.

Of course she wouldn’t, not actually, but she was irrationally furious right now, and was owning it. Privately. Well, mostly privately. She slammed the comms board, practically spitting at the _Svast’baerhn_. “Outbound, you’re clear. I’m already jacked into the repeater feed from the fleet. Are you receiving signal?”

“ _We’re logged,_ ” said Tam with that irrepressible cheeriness she had. “ _Full crew aboard and in positions._ ”

“ _Hi_!” chirped the human girl next to her. Nebula’s steel teeth ground together. Nice kid, actually, but she was just not in the mood. “ _Undocking was all clear.”_

In an attempt to be polite, Nebula did not snap out that she was well aware. She settled for a noncommittal grunt and pulled up the woefully short final plan outline. “You’re on schedule. Fleet will be engaging in twenty. You’ll slip in during the initial fray and get under ground radar with their bombers. I’ve got an environmental scan around the capitol encampment, pick a defensible and line up your hopes.”

“ _Already selected,_ ” said Kara, from somewhere inside the guts of the departing ship. She sounded nearly as moody as Nebula. A clank of metal, the scrape of leather. She was already in full kit. Sounded like Tam had adopted the girl as copilot, then. The male, Coulson? He had a good eye, Nebula was informed. So that was the gunseat filled. All that was left was luck.

Well, luck and sabotage.

. . .

Spirit was content to remain ignored as she trotted gaily around the camp on her own idea of a patrol. The scourging of the trio of worlds had done in the majority of sentient life twice over, but there were plenty of other species flourishing among the dry bushlands and rare deltas of Travinta Three, and if she kept her head down, she looked enough like some of it to pass. Even got a bit of petting from some of the mercs, which was risky, but no flerken worth their salt passed up a free petting, _especially_ if there was a chance to bite the petter later.

Or sooner.

She knew where everything important was, in any case. She knew where Cull Obsidian took his rare naps, and she knew how the metal tents were arrayed according to rank. All very regimented, orderly, and controlled, a camp of invaders who feared little and displayed it. Chaos was theirs to command, not be commanded by.

She knew where the weapon racks were, the comms controls, the way the guards patrolled between central camp and the hurriedly built ramps to the deployment airfields. And most importantly, she knew where the flight monitoring systems and camp shields were set up. All of this information had been sent on to her Nebula hours ago. Now all that was left was her little contribution to the plan.

A flerken can swallow a massive amount of solid material in a pinch, and her egg-family had the drifting, collective memories of those legendary flerkens who had accomplished near-impossible things. An entire world still locked away in one multiversal furry tummy, the flerken themselves hidden away somewhere in a centuries-long nap, waiting for the ache to wear off, and for the species to recover from the distrust the act had earned.

Even if it had been necessary at the time, but, well, that was another story.

Spirit didn’t feel the need to try and match such grand histories, and honestly, swallowing the machines when the fighting started wasn’t going to be her first choice. She had a more delicate nature, and liked to keep her dimensional pockets at a reasonable size. She was waiting instead, waiting for the klaxons to sound for incoming, and then she was going to slip past the guards, and ‘jump’ inside the large generators, and go _absolutely catshit feral_ on their wiring.

Even flerkens didn’t mess with the classics.

. . .

Loki was not inclined to treat any mission, personal or otherwise, as something worthy of anxiety. At least, that was what he had told himself for several hundred years, and thus far, said that same little mental arbiter in the back of his skull, it had worked out just fine. He’d even told himself the same tale scant days ago, waiting (anxiously) to discover what fresh hel the universe held in store for him, and at that time, the lie had held up. Even as his friends jumped aboard to back him, far more aware of the fact that he wasn’t doing so hot than he himself was.

He was not amused by the pressure the rest of his rational mind was laying in on him to get him to acknowledge that his response to anxiety was one of his cornerstone lies of a lifetime, that Coulson had read him for filth about his ability to _make_ trouble for himself if he couldn’t find any, that even Kara and Nebula, who barely even knew him, had him nailed down pretty pat.

His leg jiggled, causing the knife in his boot to thud against his ankle. He focused on that sensation, counting each whap of a silvered hilt against bone instead of focusing on any more scenarios about his upcoming showdown with one of the walking night terrors that were Thanos’s remaining generals (and oh gods, his own torturer was now an unliving haunt, Loki knew he was flawed and still responsible for horror and for crimes, but by the Gods had he honestly fucked up so badly as to earn _that much_ punishment?), and was unaware that he was also doing the palm-picking thing he’d picked up from Frigga from infancy.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when something harder thudded against his ankle, another lie’s illusion ripped off his flesh like duct tape, only to be brought back to himself by a probing little mew.

Frej smacked into his ankle again, slithering her entire body with mundane catlike abandon along his leather boot, and hitting the toe of it with the side of a tiny gaping maw, scenting it. He’d chided her for it before, telling her that any addiction could interfere with the focus and caution one needed for higher magics, but she continued to molest genuine leather surfaces whenever she damn well chose.

She continued to rub her face on his boot for a moment, then wriggled her back in a way he understood. Loki reached down and plucked her up, gently, and was grateful no one was in the bay of Tam’s ship with him to witness the way the young flerkit melted into his arms and tucked her head under his chin.

Misbehavior, followed by obscene feline charm. Loki sighed and permitted her a little rub along her skull with his chin, which she adored and knew made him look like a fool. He’d probably behave the exact same, in her paws. Such manipulation was an eternally solid tactic.

Frej’s purr deepened and she reached up to practically punch his chin with her head, followed by an attempt to pat at his cheek. He pulled away, even as she wriggled around in his hands and persisted. A louder meow chided him for his reluctance and he stared at her. “What?”

“ _Meowwww_!” said Frej, and succeeded at patting his cheek. She rarely clawed him, but he felt the sensation of her scraping at his cheek anyway, as if trying to pull him closer. She did it again, insistently.

Very well, fine. He leaned down at her, and felt her slam her entire face alongside his, that heavy, throaty purr practically in his ear, and followed by something tingly.

Magic? Yes, his senses called it magic. Hers was small and simple, and although he wouldn’t call it hampered by the way flerkens communicated in ways that didn’t mesh with magic as he knew the art, it was definitely different. A little primal, a little emotional. It was interesting. He would probably do a paper on it sometime. Assuming he survived the day.

But this was intended to convey a sensation to him, a sort of message-spell. She didn’t seem to like using letters yet for whatever personal reason, but she loved empathetics and trace-spells. A little bell of emotion dinged in his ear, singing along his spine, a mixture of colors and the faint scent of animal musk. _Worry/comfort/solidarity_.

His fingers twitched against her fur and he tried to not make a noise of surprise. “I’m fine,” he said.

She smacked him on the nose, whipping her little head around to glare at him, her eyes narrowed.

“Gods, you’re as bad as Coulson. If I say I’m fine, I will _be_ fine. It’s a bit like a command spell. I will subjugate my reality until we’re where I say we should be.”

A gentler pat before she let go and kneaded uselessly at his hard leather and blackened silversteel breastplate, but she was still glaring at him.

“Oh, my gods, I haven’t gone around and annoyed everyone else with my plans like I’ve hoped, I’ve put myself in position to be harassed for what everyone else perceives as me being an idiot. Even _you’re_ in on it.” Loki rolled his eyes.

“Mew.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“ _Mrrrrrrooooow_?” drawled the flerken, with an astoundingly clear amount of sarcasm.

“Keep that up, I won’t teach you from Beginning Illusions next month.” He cradled her in one long arm and gave her a neck rub with his free hand to show his threat wasn’t serious. Yet. Not fully aware that he was, he began to ramble, as one did with cats. “This is all horrifying and unusually frightening, cat, and I loathe all of it, and I loathe that it’s all so centered on me and the things I’ve done, and I _detest_ that I can’t change that. But I’ve got to at least go look one of these bastards in the face before he dies, even if it isn’t ultimately by my hand. Because I’m going to have to stand and fight this off again eventually, and I can’t have a panic attack every single time. I can’t let whatever Corvus Glaive has become still control me.

“Whatever the core of this is really about, whatever Proxima wants, whatever the ploy by this Swan is, this is where the fight’s starting, isn’t it? And it hasn’t been my fight, not today. It’s been everyone else’s. It’s not just about me, after all… Nebula has the right of it, do you know? Maybe not quite as she thinks, but I do also think she’s closer than we understand yet.”

More purring. Frej was comfortably used to being a sounding board.

“I’m rambling. Putting my own thoughts together. That’s what I’ve got to offer, as this continues. I can think, even under duress.” He continued to rub the flerken’s neck as she began the familiar feline transition into a liquid, leaving fur on his long black robe. Then he stopped, looking down at her with a mournful, painfully aware look. “I suppose that’s always the final weapon I have, the one I rely on the most. Using my mind to watch over my…” He faltered.

“They’re like my family, after all, aren’t they? All of them.”

Frej mewed happily and reached up to bop his face, much like a teacher with a truculent student who is finally, against all odds, at last, _getting it_.

For her trouble, she endured the hug Loki gave her. Then she wriggled away and bounced off into the shadows, flicking her tail at him as she left.


	17. Chapter 17

Spirit was already inside the comms tent, swishing her tail happily when the alarms went off. She resisted the primal urge to jump onto the console in between the confused Chitauri drones and pat at the dozens of bright red dots that had just arrived in the Travinta system, spreading out between the world below and the asteroid belt above. The drones did it for her, frantically whapping at the machine to see if the information was a mistake.

The shouts from outside told them it wasn’t, and that they had wasted critical seconds in doubting their readings. The Chitauri chittered to each other, afraid of their master’s response when their mistake was discovered. They grabbed their weapons and ran out to join the impending fray, and Spirit listened to them try and urge another set of drones to go in and attend the radar in their stead. There was an argument, and as it escalated, she understood she would be alone in the tent for a few more seconds.

Perfect. She slipped through a wisp of dimensional veils and put herself inside the machine, purring merrily as she looked for the central circuitry of the radar. A few neat swipes of her paw, a gaping, relentless maw full of sharp fangs lodged around a bolted-in knot of cables, and there went enemy telemetry. Oh, Cull would have a backup system deployed, but meanwhile, there would be a nice long stretch of time for a ship to slip into planetary orbit without notice.

She took out their comms next, which would also have a backup eventually. The ships already in the air could still communicate with each other, which was unfortunate, but no new orders would be coming in from the ground for a little while.

She jumped out of the machine, slithered past a drone’s leg, recognized him as the one who’d been graced with the touch of her fur earlier, and gave him a solid chomp on the ankle. Her fangs, now intentionally laced with a crueler dose of a flerken toxin that usually weaponized their claws instead, went deep into his leathery skin through his armor. The drone fell to one leg, screaming in shock.

Ought to thank her, really. Better to have his ankle all but melt with pain from within than be shot to death by air to ground lasers. But then, that might happen anyway. Oh, well. Certainly wasn’t her problem.

Spirit trotted on, utterly pleased with herself, her eyes fixed on the shield generator bunker.

. . .

Captain Hrymi watched the combat arena unfold according to her projections, her face locked in something like mystic serenity. Their first ballet was a simple one, a destroyer peeling off to draw the heavily armed front defensive line into a seductively violent confrontation. Cull Obsidian inspired his troops with his particular style of brusque, vital brutality. Subtlety was for warriors with less to fear, and so that front line was meant to be the most devastating. Rarely would the second line have to trouble itself. Therefore, they would be messier as they launched to pick up the slack.

“Wait,” she said to the jotun lieutenant controlling the massive vessel’s drone program.

“Shield’s to twenty percent, Captain,” he said neutrally. “Auto weapons array taking heavy fire.”

“It can take more. Focus shields around the comms array, we’re fucking dipped if we lose that. Goose those engines, pull them out towards the asteroid belt.”

“Three fighters incoming, Captain, on trajectory direct towards us.”

“Chitauri?” She pulled up the radar scan, keeping most of her attention on the droned vessel. Incoming looked small.

“Aye, Captain. close-range fighters. Laser weapons, usual short-squad chariot deployment.”

“Let them bonk off the shields, then hit them with the mass. Chirp Captain Svaldas, spread the buffer around a bit more before we engage air to surface.” She watched the destroyer pick up more frenzied drone-ships, including one of the larger slave-mind vessels. Taking out that one would drop a hearty percentage of the entire Chitauri complement. Truly, one of the most worthless forces in the galaxy. Cannon fodder, little else. She grimaced, waiting for a few of the deadlier mercenary ships to crawl into the fray, looking for a big, flashy kill to put on their resume. Wouldn’t be any fun in a stand-up fight, better to end them now before they became trouble.

“Fifteen percent.”

“Piss shooters. On course for drift?” She waited for the assent. “Kill the engines, put it all towards shields. That’ll boost back to twenty-two. Alert me at four percent, and make sure you have a damage analysis on hand.”

“Aye, mum.”

Another cadet spoke up. “Svaldas has launched. Five more ships on defensive line.”

“Good,” said Hrymi to the radar cadet as their main screen filled with the rainbow flashes and flares of active combat. Her people were holding safe and steady. “Where’s our ally corsair?”

“Coasting behind Second Destroyer Black Icicle. We have check-in. The Asgardian Prince is going to electrocute their flank in three.”

“Good lad.” Hrymi had never seen the warriors of Asgard in action, much less Thor himself in full regalia, but she knew enough from the stories and had confidence he would cauterize any offensive line coming his way. She frowned, studying the auto-generated combat tactics report. “Am I overanalyzing this, or are their squads _already_ becoming quite messy?”

Comms spoke up, sounding pleased. “Captain, chirp from Subspace Nebula. Hostile ground to air comms are temporarily shut down.”

“ _Excellent_.” She hit the inter-comms panel at her own station, seizing the obvious advantage. “Launch bays four through seventeen, prepare fighter dispatch and engage within thirty seconds. Pair up and go ship to ship. Cut through hostiles while they’re disorganized.” She cut the link again as radar pinged an unusual chime. “Report?”

“Incoming vessel on stealth jump trajectory.”

“That’ll be my Tam, then. Mark the vessel, track, and make sure she gets some cover fire as she joins our people.” She hit comms again. “Asgardian corsair, incoming ally vessel on following heading, again, that’s a friendly.”

“Doing something shitfire stupid and doing it well, aye, Capt’n?” said Bryn. The sound of thunder boomed distantly through the line.

“As we all might on this blessed day,” said Hrymi. She let go of the comm as the drone command stood up for her attention.

“Four percent, Captain!”

“Assessment?”

“Thirty-three fighter craft, the slave-mind control ship, and fifteen heavy cruiser mercs. All initial line. It’s a good bait, Captain.”

“Let them take their fucking bite, then. Burst explosives, on my mark.”

. . .

Captain Tam pushed ahead full through a pocket of open space left by a wedge of allied fighter craft herding a pair of heavy drone cruisers towards the edge of the asteroid ring, decades of practice keeping her hands steady when an explosion that seemed nearly as bright and huge as a star blacked out the left side of her cockpit autoglass. “Feck!”

“Holy hell, what was _that_?” said Daisy, who wasn’t as practiced but had also, wisely, been keeping her hands on her armrests when not doing something specifically useful. There were now dents in the soft material.

Tam elbowed her comm channel, meanwhile staying on the course her computers had already planned out with the fleet. “Fleet command, what the shit was that?”

The responding voice on the line wasn’t Hrymi, instead some much younger and viciously cheerful-sounding jotun handling inter-ship comms. “ _Your mother’s blowing up some assha-djais with a spare destroyer._ ”

“ _Assha-djais_?” asked Daisy.

“We don’t _have_ a spare destroyer.” Tam clicked mute and spoke out of the side of her mouth to the girl. “It’s Dwarvish slang, best language for cursing in the fleet. Means they eat wet wolf poopies.”

Daisy mouthed the word ‘ew’ as the comms chief came back. “ _Well, she designated one, Tamirja. Blew out almost the entire first line, second is scramming, and their comms and radar are still down._ ”

“Nice!”

“ _Aye, is. Port says you’re taking black radar trail down surface, we’re giving you jagged cover until you’re clear and on the way back._ ”

“I planned on helping out up here, joining the bombing line after ops run.”

“ _Only if you’re dead set on it, otherwise, keep safe and fly high on the surface. We’re under control here. And watch for lightning._ ”

As if cued, sparks coursed between a set of asteroids half a dozen klicks behind them, setting off another rainbow spatter of blackout across Sweet Boy’s cockpit. Tam shook her head, less fazed by the sight of the lord of thunder at his work. “Heard and understood. I’m joining in. Happy hunting, little cos’.”

“ _And ye, honored elder._ ” It sounded teasing.

“Shove _that_ back up your arse, brat.” Tam cut off the comm with a laugh at Daisy’s surprised look. “Thats Nils, he’s half my age but aces with a circuit board. Youngest son of one of my mam’s former housemaidens, back when that was still a thing.”

“He cute?”

“He’s cousin, cute’s no equation of mine.” Tam shrugged with a smirk. “ _My_ job’s keeping him from letting his head outgrow his horns.” She turned and screamed down the cockpit gangway. “Hey, Kara?”

“Yeah?” Kara didn’t bother with the comm, either, her bellow echoing up the halls.

“Nebbie’s kitten went above and beyond, they’re gonna blind while we’re on approach.”

“ETA?”

“Three minutes and three minutes thirty.”

“I’ll be in bay.”

. . .

Loki watched the shadow of Lady Kara disappear off the opened back of the ship, thirty seconds before his scheduled return to the surface of Travinta Three, and had enough grace to whisper the old words of luck to her mission. She would be moving into position from her drop zone, assessing the hills around Cull’s encampment as quickly as she could on foot.

The ship skimmed low along the ground, close enough to make out individual trees and scrub brush as it began to slow. Tam wasn’t going to make a full landing for his drop, either, but he would at least jump with relative grace off the cargo ramp, as if merely revisiting the world he helped to destroy under perfectly peaceful new circumstances.

Reality seemed to blank out for a moment as his feet touched the ground, feeling the air whip around him as Tam continued onward and then building up speed to break atmosphere, all carefully planned to be sure there had been a visual confirmation from Cull’s camp that _someone_ unwanted was here. A vis-probe would be launched, iffy odds if even his sharp eyes would spot it before it sent its vital message back.

And then Cull would know Loki was here. He resisted the chill that scrambled up his back, looking for purchase in the forefront of his mind. There was only the silence where his thoughts usually ticked.

There was an oval scrap of open plain amidst a series of hills not far from his landing point, some long ago meteor strike leaving its scar to remind the future that change was the only constant, and he set himself on the path towards it, thinking that would be a fine place to wait and lay trap.

. . .

Tam clicked off the ascension routine and hit the comm. “Warm them up, Mr. Coulson, we’ll be expected to party soon.”

“ _Do I need to know anything special about these turrets?_ ”

“Nah, they’re new and they shoot straight. We did full tests. Chair’s got a good bit of swivel to each side, but you can’t accidentally blow a hole in us. We’ve got shields and piloting under control up here. Just gun up everything that reads as hostile.”

“ _Roger that._ ” He clicked off his end of the comm as the cockpit glass showed a fading orange horizon melting anew into the black.

Tam blinked as plinks of laser fire replaced the stars, ships plummeting far past her to burn to ash before they hit the ground, and slapped at a readout panel without looking at it. “Read that and tell me the highlights.”

“Uh….” Daisy skimmed the report. “God, this is some Clone Wars shit. Initial line successfully dismantled, second line engaged, third organizing. Looks like radar is coming back online, but shields are still off.”

Tam hit the comm again and began to blurt into it before waiting for a response. “Nils, shields are still down planetside, visual confirmation on bombing coords. Our package away safe.”

“ _Received_.” The comm clicked back to silent.

Daisy watched as a series of ships began to plunge out of the third carrier, lined up for a bombing run.

“Hold on, we’re going to go join their covering fire. _Coulson, we are entering fray!_ ”

. . .

The jotun bombers were reconfigured heavy orbital miners, each with a frontal laser for target painting and a bolt-series of pre-programmed light surface ordinance lining their bellies. The fleet didn’t use deep impact explosives, it went against all of their beliefs, and their targets were only the General’s incursion forces. To what the returning people of the Triuum were trying to rebuild, Hrymi hoped to do the least amount of damage possible. Hope meant little against the brute reality of conflict, of course, the paradox of mercy. But still, they would do their best.

They were guarded by a growing line of small fighters. Tam’s blockade runner, Sweet Boy, joined the rear squad. Her armory was a little heavier than the dedicated fighters, with fair range and a fresh pair of eyes in the gunner’s seat.

A wing of hostile craft formed out of the head to head fray going on around the jotun fleet, swooping down to intercept the obvious bombing campaign getting underway. Some of the fighters peeled off from the bombers to cut them off before they got into firing range. Tam stayed where she was, a defensive fixture looking for anyone that got through.

A Sakaaran slicer swept underneath one of the jotun bashkit fighters and sped up towards the bombers. Tam’s ship didn’t even have to move. The gunpit swiveled, locked, and disabled the slicer well outside danger range. Travinta Three’s atmosphere would do the rest.

“ _Two minutes to launch range._ ” Nils’ calm voice echoed inside every ship. “ _Ninety seconds to atmospheric entry._ ”

The enemy fleet clearly had managed to come up with similar dire math. More ships peeled off from the central engagement to stop the run, only a few of them chased by their current targets. The fleet couldn’t risk carrier protection, and so most fighters had orders to stay within certain ranges. The defensive line around the bombers would have to carry the slack.

Tam waited for the main fighter line to pick their targets, seeing a mini-squad of four enemy fighters form up to try and get the bombers from the rear. She spun to intercept, putting her hopes in the human in the gun chair.

With a mission before him, Coulson’s headache was a fictional concept. Not a fan of empty violence, he was also no pacifist when he knew what the alternatives would be. The ship’s controls were alien, but hell, he’d been in space before. Half his car was made up of unique spare parts that would get him in trouble with the other agencies. That first ship he’d locked on to was a practice run, making sure he had a handle on the gunseat’s responsiveness.

Four ships?

He had that under control.

Tam did a barrel roll to shake hostile track, and Coulson swiveled the guns to match it, giving him time and stability to lock onto the salvaged Kree merc-ship in front of the oncoming squad. The debris from taking off its wing knocked out the ship right behind it, a happy accident of a two-for-one combat sale, and the remaining pair drew in closer to sight and re-target the gun platform instead of ship’s engines.

Unfortunately, this meant they sat still for a few seconds longer than necessary. So that didn’t end well for them.

Coulson let go of the gun controls with a small smirk.

“Nice shots down there,” Tam called down to him.

“Top of my class at Quantico, way back when we would borrow the FBI range for marksman qualification.”

“I can see it. Hold steady, few more trying it before we hit atmo.”

Cull Obsidian’s fleet tried it. Ten seconds later, the bombers entered the upper atmosphere, completely unscathed.

. . .

Cull Obsidian didn’t bother to seek shelter as the klaxons screamed throughout the central camp. He kept his eyes fixed on the incoming ships, lined up in tactical perfection. Their armaments would strike his launchpads first, then the reserve ground lines, and on, and on, grounding his men, destroying them, halting all his plans. Artful, he admitted in silent fury. He waited for the one to peel off that would hit the operations area that he was in. At his side was the probe with its findings, a single glimpse of the man who had obviously arranged this assault. The image was fixed in his mind now, and in a very real way it was all he could actually see. All that he cared about.

In the image, Loki stood in the center of a nearby field, staring directly at the probe as it captured his face. A dare, a direct challenge to Cull’s superiority.

Where had the traitor gathered this fleet? What _was_ it? His men had identified one lone attacker among hundreds, the heir apparent of Asgard, the dauphin fool with lightning in his grip. That was itself no useful information at all, _his_ eventual involvement was a safe assumption. Cull’s hands were clenched tight, tight enough to rip the leather and steel grips of his armor in his frustration. He had nothing to give Proxima.

Nothing left, but his life. Even if she would disagree as to the value of such trade.

The probe chirped to remind him what he knew. That all outgoing transmissions were not being boosted beyond the Triuum. That all of what was happening now was for his eyes alone, that if he fell, Proxima’s mission failed. He didn’t listen.

Loki was _here_. The mission could yet be salvaged.

Around him, the world turned to fire and shrapnel. Men screamed without harmony or unity. The remaining Chitauri drones fell as one as their final hive-repeater was shot out of the sky. Meaningless. Mere chaos would not take Thanos’s first children, who made such violence _their_ weapon.

Meaningless. Cull Obsidian swatted at the waiting probe and took up his great weapon, turning with a final, relentless drive to where the traitor awaited him. The sparks of the ruined machine snapped at his ankle, and he felt nothing.

Oh, he’d still take the mewling creature alive. For Proxima’s sake.

But he would not promise to her or her unsilent shade how many scraps of traitor’s flesh he would have to leave behind.


	18. Making Friends

18\. Making Friends

. . .

The difficult part was accepting the fear and putting it to the side for now. Loki could do it, and had done so many times before. He was calm, finally. Empty. Waiting for the appearance of one of his old ghosts, and the palms of his hands were dry. He wasn’t yet holding a knife, though there were plenty at hand if he needed them. This was not meant to be his fight, not entirely. Only a defense, until the right moment for another to strike could be found.

So strange for him, stuck being mostly passive throughout Cull’s advance. Relying on others to manage afield, offering only what wisdom he could. He didn’t like it much, after some assessment, but he was forced to accept that there was something strange and oddly welcome about realizing that his uneasy reliance on his friends had been long since well-earned.

Loki kept his eyes off the hills and shadows around him. Any stone lee or shifting grass could hide his lone, close-by protector. He had no doubts she was there, and that was another odd comfort. He still would claim to barely know her, but her loyalty to Asgard, to what Frigga would have died for all over again, that was never a question in his mind.

It was a sensation almost like safety. Almost. His eyes flickered north when another shadow appeared, this one vast and dark, eclipsing the alien sun that was rising towards some idea of this world’s light-blasted noon. He waited until the shape beyond the shadow gained coherence. Cull was a close-up fighter, and Loki was wanted alive. The danger was not yet imminent.

“Nice weather,” said Loki, in the flat tones of deliberate banality.

The gods, who typically ignored even his rare pleas for attention, followed up his joke with the distant rattle and white-fire gleam of an ammo storehouse exploding for what seemed like ages. Cull stood on the lip of a hill, staring at him with those tiny orange eyes set deep in his broad saurian face. There were protrusions on his chin, not quite like tusks but closer to something a tortoise meant for a life deep in thick earth might evolve, and they quivered at him while the scaled mouth contorted with an enraged grimace.

Loki followed up his verbal punch with a smile, ammo still crackling through what remained of the general’s central camp. “Bit hot, though.”

“Traitor,” said Cull, and his voice was dark molten stone. “Mongrel. Child.”

“I’m old enough to qualify for vehicle rental in every galaxy I’ve been in, _and_ I usually leave them in one piece when I depart.” Another meaningless, fangy smile. “Oh, I mean the galaxies themselves, of course. A vehicle’s condition is fifty-fifty, I admit.” He stepped forward, an act of secret bravery that would mean nothing to Cull. He spread his empty hands for emphasis. “See, unlike you and your beastly maker, I made an effort to not remain a monster.”

“Father lifted us into purity,” said Cull with a grace Loki didn’t expect. Not just a brute. Thanos’s creatures were never just that. “You were granted this gift and scorned it.”

Painful coals lit up along his spine, the past raging back hot into the forefront of his mind. He forgot the hidden audience, forgot everything but how much he loathed those memories of Sanctuary, and spat that fire back at the general. “I was tortured deeper into a madness I never needed to lose myself to. That no one should suffer. Gods alone know what was done to _you_ , and now you tell yourself you embrace it. What would happen if you ever woke up and understood the amount of death you’ve left behind you?”

“I _am_ awake, traitor child,” rumbled Cull, serene now against Loki’s fury. The butt of the great weapon he held thunked into a low stone close to where he stood. “I accept what I am. I hear the song of life. Even now it rises around us.”

“Those are death screams, you witless crank,” said Loki, immediately annoyed with the hulking creature. Boredom approached, that helpful old friend. It was difficult to hold on to old fears when the shade took its mask off to be understood. Cull was yet another being with aspirations that matched no sane reality. “You wouldn’t know a symphony if a composer carved their great work onto marble and shoved it whole up your arse.”

“Proxima understands.” Audible irritation crept into Cull’s voice.

It might not be his fight to win, but he was going to _blind_ the bastard as best he could before any physical conflict started. And no one could drive an opponent as batshit with rage as efficiently as Loki. He’d already found a good wedge, and now he leaned on it with his full weight. “I’m told Proxima is a serial murderer with the ghost of her dead husband egging her on,” he said. “Hardly a reliable source. That sort of nonsense drives one _mad_.”

Cull’s mask of nobility slipped loose and the slaughterer Thanos had made out of him ripped free out of him with a mindless roar of affront. He lifted the weapon and Loki watched it become first a scythe, a warning of what Cull _really_ wanted to do to him, and then folding itself into a particularly unpleasant-looking mace, full of juts and angles and sharp bits where logically sharp bits don’t go on a mace but here we were.

The sort of thing that whacks off a leg at minimum, and not cleanly.

Loki rather liked having all of his body parts in one easily accessible place, and his lips pressed together as he quickly considered next moves. A knife appeared in his hand, a good long one, although the idea that he’d parry a pointy stick that was probably twice as heavy as himself with it never crossed his mind.

Bit hard to hold onto a death machine with your fingerbones slipping wetly off the knuckle, though. That worked just about every time. If he could disarm the creature somehow, that’d be best not only for himself, but for an assassin waiting for a clear shot.

“The traitor whelp has no right to speak our sister’s name! No right to remember Corvus, who died for your failures!” Cull was reaching incandescent, and yet he stayed out of range, close to the hill’s rise and not nearly exposed enough. Too smart by half. Too armored.

The mindless pain at his memories haunted their way back and he stopped before lunging into danger range. He turned it into a lance instead, holding himself back, the knife dancing at his fingers. “I think he bungled everything sufficiently enough all on his own. Have you had the spirit fully examined? As an occasional exorcist, I’ve found it’s far more common for a spirit to be chained to this realm due to its own unexamined failures rather than by some magical bondage.” He grinned, sharklike, pressing the sharpest lie he could muster in between layers of the truth. “Certainly _I_ got away from him scot free. And it’s me you blame for his lack. _Tsk_.”

It was the click of Loki’s tongue that did it, a snappy little sound of dismissal. Cull froze as rage visibly pulsed through his veins, the tiny orange eyes popping wide and hot, his entire brain rebooted and rewired with nothing but pure righteous hate for the comparatively tiny figure in front of him, shitting merrily on Cull’s whole life and his adopted family.

Cull began to move at last, the mace coming up high - too high for Loki to get at the knuckles of his grip, to do anything but get the hel out of his way and _fast_. So he did, dodging neatly, not blinking, and darting again when the mace came around in a surprisingly wide swing as Cull’s grip loosened at the last second to widen its arc.

Even maddened, he was too trained a fighter to leave an opening. Loki’s teeth gritted together and he kept moving, not bothering to think much about anything else at first but wearing the general down and staying in one piece. As fast as Cull was moving, as heavily as that mace swung, it wouldn’t take long. But until that point, any strike might end the game - if not Loki’s own life.

_Pushed him a bit far_ , Loki thought as he dodged a strike that left a crater in hard, cracked ground. Above, the air assault came around for another strafe of the general’s camp, no doubt picking off remaining targets. _And he’s still moving too fast for anyone to get close_.

_Had_ Cull been changed by Thanos? Enhanced somehow, like Nebula or his Chitauri test drones? Loki kept dodging, wondering if once again he’d miscalculated something and the legendary chicken was about to come back and roost somewhere deeply unpleasant.

In his mind, the terribly useful echo: _This has literally happened before_.

Loki brushed past a boulder that he was thankfully fully aware of, hoping it would catch Cull’s ankle instead and trip the beast up. _Shut up, Phil_.

Cheerier yet: _How’s your solo gig going this time_?

_Philip J. Coulson, when I get myself out of this situation, you are not going to understand why I am going to give you the ugliest look of my life. Or maybe you will understand, and honestly, that’s worse, isn’t it_? He dodged again. The boulder that could have been his defender splintered easily into rubble, which he didn’t have time to arch an eyebrow at. _For me. Gods fucking damnit_.

Another swing, this one going high. Loki dodged and bounced into a roll, looking for a chance at slashing the business arm of the general and finding only air. Cull was ridiculously quick. _But I’m not alone, am I? Though might as well be at the nonce, there’s no chance here for an assassin. I told her I could defend myself, and by Gods I’m trying. But shit and fire, this could be going more smoothly for me_.

Cull reared back and smashed the ground as Loki landed on his feet, the impact strong enough to ripple through the earth, casting him off balance at a critical second. Loki, seeing the unavoidable, let himself drop and be carried by the rolling earth, then danced back to his feet and out of range. Scant inches of clearance, too close for his comfort.

He’d thought about his own funeral a few times before, probably often enough to splinter an uncomfortable offshoot of conversation with the therapist he would never see about suicidal ideation, and he didn’t actually much enjoy the current flash of imagery. It included Nebula standing over the sealed boat - his body, if Cull got a hit in, wasn’t going to be much to look at - and pouring the cheapest, most expired bottle of lager over him she could find. It _would_ be all he deserved at that point, if he was going to be fair.

It got him motivated again. “Getting slow in your age, Cull,” he said, risking the breath. “Or is it a lack of conviction, with dear old Thanos gone?”

It bought him a moment’s reprieve, as Cull staggered in refreshed anger. “You took him from us!”

“Gladly, and with plenty of help.” Loki took another educated chance and threw a small knife he’d been pocketing in his palm, razing the top of Cull’s knuckles. Sickly looking purple blood dripped along the shaft of his weapon and Cull switched dominant hands, looking momentarily unsteady. A point to Loki’s score, and first blood.

But now Cull was fully lost to whatever bloodlust took him, making him unpredictable. That was riskier than ever, and a moment later, Loki stepped back and not far enough, Cull’s adrenaline pushing him past known limits. The upswing barely caught Loki, ripping the fabric of the long sleeve along his arm and tossing him aside.

Fortunately there was a dwarven steel gauntlet underneath, but the impact still took his wind. He was reduced to crawling, stumbling halfway towards his balance, and he saw the massive shadow overtake him.

Then the shadow went black, blacker than possible even with the harsh morning light, and Loki grimaced at the way the sight of it made even his ears feel somehow shattered until he realized it was a mighty thunder that rocked his senses, and a bolt of white hot lightning that cast the general’s deadly attack aside.

Mjolnir struck Cull broadside along the face next, knocking him off his course and stunning him. Loki rolled onto his back and saw Thor reclaim the hammer far above, high in the skies where he must have joined the bombing campaign… or came to be sure of his brother’s safety.

Loki told himself he didn’t know which, not for sure, and kept scrabbling, not a little stunned himself, to make sure he would be defended when Cull came out of his brief stupor.

For that single second, Loki had forgotten that he was never alone on the blasted plain, never actually facing this alone. Another shadow ripped across the field from where it had been creeping ever closer, and then a Queen’s assassin used Cull’s own hunched calf as a springboard to bring herself up his back, wrapping an arm tightly across the throat. Loki fell on his rear in a renewed stun, watching the inevitable happen.

Kara wasted no time, cast no glance anywhere to assess the scene. She was here for one purpose, found her opening, and went to it efficiently. The blade she’d chosen was dead black and Loki recognized the type - obsidian flake edge, and ebon-blued Asgardian steel, a killer’s weapon. It would take a little strength to accomplish what she set herself to, but a blade like that one was finer than a guillotine.

Cull’s decapitated body fell to its knees, the sightless, heavy head now gripped in a gloved hand by way of one of those jutting protrusions on his jaw. The long black knife sat in Kara’s other hand. She cleaned it by way of a quick whip through the air and a wipe on the corpse, then put it away.

The head dropped to the ground and she went to him, hunkering close to his side the way she did. “Saw you take that hit, of course, damn near blew cover until I saw the red cloak in the sky on approach. Alright then?”

He lifted the ruins of his sleeve to show off the gauntlet that had protected him, then blinked at it. There _was_ blood, but not much of it. The monstrous mace had torn through even dwarvish steel, but now he felt the sting of the hit he took. “Fuck,” Loki said, surprised.

Kara looked at him, unimpressed. “No bones broken. Just a scrape there, hurt like the proverbial, but should heal clean.”

“My favorite fucking gauntlet!” He dropped his arm and stared at her, genuinely aghast. “Survived Thanos, twice. Survived my first fuckups on Earth. Survived everything I threw at it. A five hundred year old gauntlet. It’s outlived half of the Queen’s succulents, and you know how hardy those things are. Gods ruddy-shoddy damn it!”

Kara rocked back on her heels, increasingly unamused by what was an overdone but also sincere amount of grief. “They’ll have a mold of it in Nidavellir, I’m sure.”

“It won’t be the same.” He reached under the sundered gauntlet with a wince and unsnapped it, realizing as it fell free that the denting had been putting pressure on all the wrong places along his wrist. Bruises were already starting to show. He’d come out whole, but with an object lesson on how close Cull had gotten to ripping him _into_ new ones. “Ouch.”

She arched an eyebrow at the sight of the darkening patches along his arm. “All right, that might be bothersome for a day or four. Gods, how much did that bastard bench press?”

“Enough to fold me like an envelope if he’d gotten any closer.”

“You’re built like a parchment anyway, that’s not saying much.” Kara rose and went back to the severed head. “Got a pouch? I forgot to pack one.”

“I am _not_ that fragile and you damn well know it, we had to grow up with brick shithouses all around us and it fudges the curve.” He looked up from his bruises to see the head dangling from her hand again. “You’re keeping it?”

“Thought I’d have the skull cleaned out, put candy and little trinkets in it for the children what come around my home during festival months.” She spun back on him with her hands spread and the head jiggling, nearly yelling. “Of course I’m not bloody _keeping_ it! It goes in a shipping box with a nice note telling Proxima bloody Midnight it’s time to start watching out for her own arse!”

“Is it wise to send that sort of open warning?” Thor landed neatly on the ground near them, sparing an unconcerned glance for the headless corpse.

“People panic in extremely useful ways when you send them death letters, Highness, they open up all their escape routes for monitoring and pull out weapons kits and orbital defenses. Then you let them relax again, _then_ you decide if you’re just going to poison them some night, or creep into their house where you now know where all the iffy floorboards are and stab them to death. For examples. Which are completely chosen at random and not indicative of anything I may have done multiple times before to people that annoyed me.” Kara crossed her arms and put her back to Loki, her tone infinitely more polite towards Thor. “Did you happen bring a pouch, my lord?”

Wordlessly, Thor rummaged around behind his belt and came up with a large sack, which was part of an Asgardian’s battlefield kit, holding a day’s food and supply, and which also, had Coulson been nearby to realize, looked strangely like a large version of one of those nice velvet bags that come with Crown Royal liquor bottles. He handed it out towards Kara.

“Perfect, Your Highness, thank you.” She tapped at something by her ear a moment later. “Aye? We’re good here. Aye, target down.” She tapped the hidden comm again, listened for a while, and grinned at the pair of princes. “The remnants of the fleet are scattering.”

“Mercenaries,” scoffed Thor.

“And every Chitauri hive-repeater is down. They’re all dying off.” Kara tied the heavy pouch to her own belt and wiped her hands together as if finishing a stage play. “A win all ‘round, an absolute blowout.”

“And all I had to do was stay out of it, until this was the only choice,” muttered Loki to himself. “Great lesson. I hated it.”

Kara shot him a glance but it wasn’t clear if she’d actually heard him. “Captain Hrymi’s fleet is mostly intact. Some damage to two other destroyers, they’ll have to dock with the carriers for repairs.”

“But the carriers themselves hold?” asked Thor. “No central damage?”

Kara shook her head. “They drew some heavy fire, but shields and defense line fighters kept everything stable.”

“I’ll have to tell the captain myself how glad I am to hear it.” Thor looked at his brother, rubbing feeling back into his nearly broken wrist. “Do you need Eir?”

“Eitri, more like.” He still sounded mournful.

Thor looked at Kara, his brows knotting together with the obvious question.

“He’s grieving,” she said dryly. “Gauntlet’s wrecked from taking a clip off a mace the size of an asteroid.”

“Not the dwarven! Loki, you’ve had that one for centuries.” Thor’s face immediately fell into genuine sympathy and he went to kneel by Loki’s side, inspecting the ruined armor.

“If my eyes roll any harder, _I’m_ going to need Eir,” said Kara under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Oh, just muttering my excitement for a plan gone, erm, to plan.” Kara clapped her hands together. “Well! Why don’t I leave the princes to their, ah, grieving, and I’ll just nip off with this decapitated head, let Nebula know all the details.” She stalked off without waiting for a response.

“Was she being sarcastic?” asked Thor, looking up into his brother’s face with confusion.

“Absolutely,” said Loki, flexing his tingling fingers and letting the exhaustion finally hit him. Another dubious mission survived. Somehow. “But I expect she’s earned it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early next week will see the two part finale.


	19. The Kids are Alright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First part of the finale.

Captain Hrymi often ignored formalities when it came to family, and the first thing she did on boarding Tam’s ship was going straight to her daughter for an embrace. “Well flown, little one.”

“Don’t call me ‘little one’ in front of the humans, mom. They’re already used to shrimpy giants, it’s setting bad standards for the people.” Tam laughed and backed away again, gesturing towards Nebula, who’d arrived in a shuttle a short while prior. “This is our intel agent, Nebula.”

“Ah, the other one with the flerken.” Hrymi bowed her head towards the cyborg, then reached out. “My sister is considering sending a handful of their adopted kits our way. We’ve never had ship’s cats before, and they might benefit from seeing more of our society.”

“First tip, locks don’t work so don’t bother trying to keep them out of places. Second, they hear everything and store it for future reference so you won’t ever win a verbal battle with one. Third, they _will_ step on every tender part of your body in the middle of the night.” Nebula reached out and clasped Hrymi’s larger offered hand. “I didn’t even think I _had_ soft parts left in some places.”

Hrymi laughed, then laughed again as Spirit appeared, as if cued. “And thus, here is the other intel agent herself.” She nodded to the flerken. “We’ve you to thank for blinding the ground controls, it changed all odds to our favor considerably.”

Spirit plopped on her butt and curled her tail around her feet, preening brightly at the compliment.

“Now she’ll be insufferable for a month,” said Nebula, glancing at Loki and seeing his quick, coded look of sympathy.

Spirit blepped her tongue at her partner, whapping her tail on the cargo bay floor.

“As earned,” said Hrymi. She glanced past her daughter and Nebula towards Kara. “Aye again, Lady Kara. As ever, a trustworthy blade.”

“I try to stay sharp, Captain.” Kara bowed her head low, dressed in something close to a formal uniform of neat blacks with a strip of Queen’s bright blue at her shoulder, her hair tied close and tight.

Loki watched the two, frowning a little as he realized Kara knew more about a certain few Jotunheim secrets than he did. An effect of being the Queen’s blade and messenger, but still, a surprise he should have expected. Hrymi knew the assassin well, and fully trusted her with her own daughter, and long time friend. “Captain,” he said mildly as Hrymi turned towards him, standing next to his human friends.

“Prince Loki. I am glad to hear my sister sees thee well,” she said, looking him over in that quick, scanning way a good tactician had. He couldn’t see the results of her assessment, but her body language didn’t change for the worse, anyway. He was surprised again when she chose to speak further. “Two Queens have put their trust in you despite old odds, and today I too put my faith behind that trust. Paid off, then. It is as Ma’mah taught when we were children. The best gamble is oft the _understood_ one, not merely the guaranteed. And we understand our family well.”

“Thank you,” he said, feeling a little inane as he absorbed the depth intended in those words. He pulled it back together. “For the sake of the surviving Triuum people as well, thank you.”

“That will be another matter, isn’t it?” Hrymi gave him a wry smile. “For the damage we had no choice but to cause, things must also be put right.” She nodded to Nebula again with a quick, oddly familiar sort of smile. “We are informed that there is an… outside agency supporting the resettlement of these worlds, a business that has been set back by the general’s act of war. Our fleet will formally offer our services to that agency. We comport well in battle, but we are _very good_ at our deliveries. We should be able to help quickly repair certain damages, and ferry healers more efficiently than some.”

“A fleet with little red tape to slow them,” said Loki.

“Extralegal doesn’t always equate malicious. Sometimes malice is protected in the rule of law itself.” Hrymi shrugged. “Regardless, it is our way.”

“Asgard will happily route some funds as well,” said Thor, who had missed the briefing that revealed who was _actually_ running the agency funding the Triuum’s resettlement.

“We’ve got it,” said Loki, who didn’t want to get into it all over again. “It’s fine.”

“We’ll send some materials over, at least,” pushed Thor.

“Fine,” said Loki, as Daisy giggled next to him and the trio of women who’d pulled him into this mess smirked as one. “I’m sure that will help.”

“Fine!” Thor clapped Bryn on the back, grinning. “Anything else we can do, simply let us know. That goes for you as well, Loki. No more generals on your own. No more silliness.”

Loki tried to not roll his eyes at his brother’s concern, and failed miserably. “It will work out.”

“Hm,” said Thor. “Bryn, what about Sakaar?”

“Oh, we’ll get to _that_ ,” said the Valkyrie, cheerfully. “Let them stew a bit, though.”

Kara raised a hand part way. “If you need another body on hand, I can re-insert anytime. I already had plans to, eventually, assuming we could stay off Proxima’s radar. The persona I used is dead, but the man’s got a mind like a gnat. Getting into Sakaar is stupid easy.”

“On purpose,” warned Bryn. “Getting out isn’t, always. We’ve been lucky, with others to pull you out it’s doable. But you can get lost there. I speak from long experience.”

“Noted, with thanks.” Kara nodded to her. “I always leave an escape rope.”

Bryn flicked a glance at Tam, understanding. “Meanwhile, suppose I’ll fart around Asgard. Might duel you again if you like.”

“Please no.” Kara didn’t hide the wince. “I’m not stand-up, and I don’t try to be. Anyway, like as not won’t be there much myself for a bit.”

“Oh?” Bryn arched an eyebrow at her.

Kara jabbed a thumb towards Tam. “Well, cover’s somewhat blown, no point in pretending we’re not all invested in making sure a bunch of bastards aren’t faffing around the edges. And Tam likes Earth. So we’ll be local to their system a while.”

“Oh, gods,” said Loki, louder than he intended. It was Phil that got him sharp in the rib with an elbow.

“Wait, you guys are gonna hang around with us human losers?” Daisy gawped up at Tam with delight, seeing it mirrored in Tam’s grinning face. “Awesome! We do takeout on Wednesdays, I’ll make sure Coulson lets you in if you want to join us. It was so great meeting you both. Well, you again, kinda, but like, formally this time.”

“I haven’t had tacos in a minute,” said Tam, dreamily. She blinked as Daisy darted past her to hug the black clad assassin like a new old friend. “And I haven’t seen _you_ look that thrown off in a decade.”

Kara stared up at her friend, both betrayed and clearly unsure how to extricate herself from excitable human overfamiliarity. “I made tacos last month.”

“They were edible, Kara, which means close to sucking, and it’s not your fault. We can’t _do_ carnitas right on a ship. You simply can’t barbecue in a closed vent vehicle, not if you like having functioning lungs.” Tam faded out again as Kara awkwardly patted the young woman hugging her on her back. “Smokey grills, roasted peppers.” She groaned, suddenly and cartoonishly hungry. “ _Cheeeeeeeese_.”

“Anyway,” said Kara with an air of desperation, glancing at Nebula and Loki and even Coulson for rescue and finding nothing. “For now there’s some debrief and post-conflict to work over back at the slipspace.”

“There’s no hurry,” purred Nebula, clearly enjoying the various levels of discomfort in the bay. “Take your time coming back.”

“Better to get it all sorted while fresh in your mind, you know?” Daisy finally let Kara go, at which point she looked hugely relieved. She patted absently at the knife at her belt, making sure no one had gotten accidentally stabbed somehow.

“Hm.” Nebula shrugged. “Anyway, we better split fleets soon here. The point is to still leave Proxima and the remaining generals questioning exactly what happened, and hanging around for Nova Corps to show up or the newsfeeders out of the Midspace channelports won’t help that.”

“She’s right,” said Coulson. “They’ll guess at who got involved, but no proof means they’ll keep moving slow for now. And we’ve all got other things to deal with before they act again, too, so it’s best to take what chances we have.”

Hrymi nodded to him. “Well said. Tam, you’ll be marked down on checkpoint routes, then. Midgard systems and surrounding.”

“Aye, mum. See you next roundabout meet.” A more formal salute between the two women, and Hrymi excused herself from the ship, momentarily docked within her own carrier.

The shout filtered back before she got out of hearing range, a moment of pure and recognizable frost giant coming out of the sedate fleet captain. “ _And ‘fore I forget, that hairy runt bastard better sell us a decent destroyer replacement!_ ”

Loki and Thor both winced. Thor glanced sideways at him. “I’ll finance it through Asgard.”

“He’ll try to bounce the check and get double the pay out of you, assuming, probably rightly, that Asgard would just eat the extra. Send me to help courier it when the deal’s set, Rocket won’t screw with my payments. He’s _learned_.”

Thor clapped him hard on the back. “Will do, little brother.” He jerked his chin at Bryn. “You ready to set off, madam Valkyrie?”

“I sat on one world too long, now I get squirrelly I’m in the same place longer’n a few hours,” said Bryn. “Let’s go home a while, see if I remember where all the good bars are.”

“There’s a place with really good bread about a half hour from the port,” said Daisy, trying to be helpful.

Thor pointed at her, instantly understanding. “The Sons of Schonna. And the best Dwarven mead to be tapped outside of the palace! Excellent reminder! Best brawls every week.”

Bryn glanced at Kara, who gave her the bland but familiar look women shared when men were being men. She nodded a farewell, then tugged at the prince’s burly arm. “Might do. Come on, then. Let the intelligencers go back to their business, and the Midgardians home safe.” She nodded once to Coulson. “A brief meeting, but a pleasure to know you both.”

“You, too,” said Phil, and they left, as well.

Tam pointed at Daisy. “You’re back on stick, lass. Let’s bounce.”

. . .

Coulson knocked at the mostly closed door to the cubby Loki was resting in. “Got a moment?”

“At last, finally, I do.” He sounded exhausted. There was the sound of a book closing. “It’s been an absolute day of it.”

Coulson pushed the door open and came in to see Loki flopped across the bunk with a hardcover on his chest. God knew where he’d gotten it. He probably had a magically enchanted pocketspace just for his reading queue. Phil settled for leaning on the doorframe. “Listen, I just wanted to apologize.”

Loki’s brows furrowed at him. “For what?”

“As it turned out, Daisy and I couldn’t do much to help. I’m glad we came, because how can I pass up a chance to see just how weird it is up here? I love it, I really, honestly do.” Coulson shrugged. “That’s one of the good things to come out of the rise of, well, everything in the last decade. There’s so much out here, and it’s all fascinating, new, and teaches us new things about life. Even the awful parts.”

“You mean since I dropped onto Earth with a surly look and a plan.” Loki smirked, self-deprecating but not wallowing in it, either.

“We’ve been slow-walking to weird for a while, you just kickstarted the hell out things.” Phil gestured vaguely. “But anyway. I’m-“

“Don’t say it again. It’s not accurate, anyway.” Loki picked the book back up and did the thing where he was actively pretending to ignore someone until a conversational element he didn’t like went away.

Coulson, however, was too stubborn for that. “We couldn’t be on the surface helping out in the final conflict, we didn’t really do much to help gather information. Daisy and I were just sort of… here.”

A page was aggressively turned.

“So I’m glad you let us along, but I suppose on the bright side we did exactly what you told us to for once. Stay out of the way. Be moral support.”

The book didn’t move. “It was exactly what was required of you.”

“Stand around and look sassy?”

“That was _my_ job up until the bit at the end, thank you _very_ much.” Loki held the book steady with one hand and lifted his other wrist to show it off. He had the wrist supported with a tight cloth brace, but it didn’t hide a series of bruises healing along the forearm so grotesquely that he’d given up and let that entire arm turn jotun blue so he could monitor the actual process for any complications. Phil winced at the sight of them. “And that was damn near enough.”

“That guy was major league baseball.”

“Dropkick a truck over Earth’s moon for shits,” muttered Loki. “You’ve no idea. I actually do think he was juiced, so to speak, it makes sense knowing what we do of Thanos’s proclivities for upgrades and torture, or torturous upgrades. Aggressively smart and thriving on violence. Gods know what the warlord did to the other remainders.”

“I’m glad that’s all Cull did to you.”

“No gladder than I. Never been so happy to see an assassin running in my general direction in my life.” The book was laid back down, though Loki still didn’t look at him. “The moral support was necessary.”

Coulson didn’t say anything.

“I might’ve tried to leave earlier, do something foolish on my own, but my loyalties ultimately kept me here. Along with the shouting, to be fair. Might’ve made different plans with grander risks, but was held back by the idea of who would get the humans home.”

“Tam would’ve gotten us there,” said Coulson, throwing his grudging admissions a bone of plausible deniability. “She’s what the kids call a real one.”

“Still my responsibility. To friends, I suppose.” His thumb flicked at the corner of his book. “Nebula hates those generals as much or more than I. This poisonous idea of family that Thanos fomented within them - us - all. She rejects it utterly now, what he built. Sees all that is wrong with it. I wonder sometimes what it was like inside her mind, all these years among his kind, and since. But I expect I don’t need to ask. I might understand well enough, and I understand the lessons she’s come up with since.”

“Lessons?”

A quick glance. “She’s chosen a family of her own, despite all that was built around her. Despite what she was intended for. I understand that. And moreso, as time goes on.”

Coulson nodded.

“How is your skull?”

He winced. “Someone tell you?”

“No secrets on this ship. If everyone gets to hear my business, then so too will yours air live for all to enjoy.”

Coulson snorted. “It’s almost completely gone. Just a dull thud, and only if I turn my head too fast. Which at my age can happen some mornings anyway.”

“Good. Lady Kara gave me the necessary information about the potion she offered you. I’m not much an alchemist and certainly no healer, but it’s a simple enough blend. It won’t replace proper analysis and treatment, and we can of course ask Eir for an examination if you’re willing to explore the option, but in a pinch the drink would probably be far better than half a dozen aspirin at a single toss.”

“Yeah, not gonna play that with aspirin. All of you guys hit my stomach lining hard enough.” Coulson grinned at him. “I’m not going to forget that, by the way. I’m letting you play it off for now, but I am not going to forget you just admitted we’re friends and pretty much part of your family now.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed at him. “Go away, Coulson. I am tired. I have been ragdolled by generals and shouted at for days. I’m going to read this book until we return to Earth, and then I’m going to lock myself in my quarters, _finish_ reading this book, and then read another one. Left alone. On my remaining time off. I believe I have several days left on my filed notice.”

“Oh and Kara left me a phone number. In case we ever need an emergency contractor.”

Loki said something intensely rude and pulled his book back open. “We won’t. It would be a bother to them, I’m sure.”

“I dunno, they seem pretty competent over there, and she was happy to hand over her card. I liked them, her and Tam. May would like Kara a _lot_.”

“‘And when the dredge pulled the horoplex runeset from the Neroscipline riverbed, historians were on hand to mark the auspicious event. This primary-work set of runes changed the landscape of artificer runic language for the entire Erascii people, and would go on to impact multiple dreamlayer worlds. In the next chapter we will-‘“

Coulson yawned, just to annoy him. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Horoplex runeology is _fascinating_ , it formed the basis of stable illusions for multiple galaxies, Coulson. It was the single greatest magical advancement of its era.”

“Cool, I just put the new Baldacci on my app, it actually has a story.”

“In a human thriller? The barest excuse for one, I’m sure.” Loki snorted and shuffled his shoulders down into the cot, looking properly cozy. “Shoo.”

“Fine,” said Coulson, turning to go with a grin.

“ _Fine_.”

Coulson was almost all the way down the hall before Loki muttered the rest. “And thank you. For being there.”

It might have gone unheard, but not in a ship designed to carry even the lightest of sounds through its halls.

Coulson smiled to himself, never doubting the truth.


	20. Epilogue: The Hollow Men

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second part of today's finale.

Epilogue: The Hollow Men

. . .

Kara stroked the back of the purring flerken, who was dancing back and forth across Nebula’s digitized table for attention, her delicate toe beans just barely missing buttons that would scatter critical data. “Unpredictable elements aside, the operation came out clean. One general is down and we kept all eyes shut while we did it.”

“It was still messy,” complained Nebula. “Loki got loose on the field. My informer nearly got outed last night by one of Proxima’s agents, I’m still going to have to move them. They’ve got enough information to look for retribution, and Gamora’s going to have to keep her crew off grid for a little while because I got seen at the port.” Spirit wedged her wet nose under her arm. Nebula, not in the mood for it, hoisted the flerken gently around her waist and put her down on the floor.

Spirit got back up onto the table less than a second later. Nebula braced her arms along its edge and hung her head in defeat, the fluffy tail occasionally bapping into her forehead. “If we can’t move cleaner than this, we’re going to get smoke down the line,” she said to the space between the table and the floor.

“We’re going to get smoke. We have to start planning around that, Nebula, it’s just how it has to be. Loki is who he is, he’s never going to be a fully predictable element. All we can do is work around him. And, gods help us all, _with_ him, when the time comes around. Properly, next time.”

“Is that why you told him you’d be staying local?”

Kara scratched her upper arm and grinned at the top of Nebula’s head. “Yeah. I told him the big truth up front, and he didn’t think to ask the rest of the question. That’s one of the very few ways to tunnel him. He’ll be chewing on that so long, he likely won’t think there’s a very good reason why.”

“Well, with the Maw already inserted on Earth, he’ll figure it out eventually.”

“By then I’ll be in position and know more about why he’s there. And Loki better have his ass together, because if I can’t get the immediate jump on a sorcerer of the Maw’s caliber, and I probably can’t, Loki is going to have to take that one head on.”

“And he’s going to end up distracted by a _goddamn_ civil war, meanwhile. I’ve already got a satellite purchase lined up, I’ll have eyes on Jotunheim within the week.” Nebula’s fingers pressed against the table, causing a creak. “Why does everything happen all at once?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did. It’s my entire career in a shell, long spaces of mundanity punctuated by shit flinging itself suicidally into fans.”

“ _Long_ spaces, Miss semi-immortal handmaiden. Fucking Asgardians.”

Kara snorted at the joke-derisive tone. “Tell you what, after this finally winds up, I’m picking the most obnoxiously precise embroidery project I’ve got in my queue and throwing myself into it for about a decade.”

“Bullshit, you’ll be out stabbing pirate ships to death again within a week. Tam already tried to bet on that with me, I told her I’m not a sucker.”

“Embroidery projects are transportable.” Kara sniffed. “Both things can be true. Besides, embroidery is really just terribly precise stabbing, when you get right down to it.” She waved her hand and barely whiffed the flerken, who meeped at her to watch her goddamn aim. “Sorry, kit. But anyway, Tam should already have the long range set up. We’ll be making a main camp on Earth in a couple of weeks, not close to main targets.”

“And what are you going to do for fun on Earth meanwhile?”

“Get a lot of takeout, apparently. Might check local bounty lists.”

“They don’t really do bounties on Earth, Kara. And don’t take jobs from any militarized force other than SHIELD unless you _really_ know the geopolitics involved.”

“Well, fuck. About the bounties, anyway. The latter is just a given.” Kara frowned. “Let my fingernails grow until things explode, I guess. See if there’s some defense-only civ work I’m willing to do. Concerts or whatever.”

“You’re gonna be bored as hell.” Nebula pushed herself away from the table and tossed Kara an emergency comm tab. “Have fun with it. And don’t use that to call and bitch to me about your princely friend when he goes off book again, _I’m_ going to be staying busy.”

“Lucky you,” said Kara, dour now. She gave Spirit another good scritching just under an ear and let herself out of the office. “And he’s not my friend.”

Nebula watched her leave, then waited for doors to close, leaving her alone to mutter safely. “Yeah, but here we all are anyway. Always wondered what having an idiot little brother would be like. It’s annoying as hell.”

Spirit chittered at her partner, laughing as she might on seeing a bird flying too close.

. . .

Proxima had a black box with sixteen hours of unusable footage and a handful of mercenaries she’d had her men round up for the crime of desertion. They would be executed by night’s end, both for their abandonment of Cull Obsidian in his final hours, and for their utter uselessness. A few described the ships used in a bombing campaign that wiped out the encampment - anonymous. Some others were in orbit when the enemy fleet arrived - anonymous. And the remaining dredges sent to control other pressure points across the Triuum cut and run without bothering to engage the arriving security forces.

All of it, useless. There was a package inbound for her, too, apparently. She had her suspicions and her fears. Warnings to heed. More useless baggage to wrangle.

She’d had a glaive made for her a couple years ago, melting down the whitesteel tri-spear she had favored throughout her years of service to Thanos. The new glaive bore her colors, blue and white, but had been otherwise made to mimic her dead mate’s. With some certain upgrades. As a mark of what stood beside her.

Corvus was with her. Always now, Maw’s curse and gift as they gradually understood what Thanos had done with his enslaved spirit, the Maw giving the soul some autonomy by re-chaining it to her. A difficult work, but he had done it for their family.

Corvus Glaive was somehow not like the other prisoners long consumed and then released by the Soul Gem during the fall of Sanctuary. He had been kept, and none of them were sure why. Even Maw, who had overseen most of Thanos’s ghoulish studies of the Infinity Stone, had few answers for her.

Proxima reasoned he’d had _some_ purpose to it. She had trusted to the Titan’s purpose for almost all her life. It was unthinkable to her to suggest that there had been nothing to it, some mere and abject cruelty. She would seek the reason, claim it, fulfill it. Until her own death, if she must.

She reached up to touch her mate’s face, knowing that her fingers would never connect, knowing that his blazing, maddened eyes only barely saw her. In death he was all but lost, a feral thing fueled by his last emotions alone. He spoke rarely, and when he did, they were vague prophecies of violence, screamed inside her dreams, rattling her skull. She counted each one a blessing, and marked them down in a private journal for reference.

For now she would feed that anger and vengeance. Use his words for their purpose. For love, though they had been distant once. “Can you see him, Corvus? Can you see our brother?”

The shade kept silent. Hating, his aura touched by sickly black fire.

“Cull Obsidian is with you now. The detestable traitor managed some miracle, blinded my eye and claimed my little dwarf.” She looked over the spirit’s head, seeking Cull, but he was not there. “It is myself and the Maw. And the Swan… though we understand little of what her mission truly is. I know we are aligned. I know she believed in the Father. I trust in her, for now, and she in me.” She smiled at her dead mate, brittle. “That will have to be enough. Until we can reclaim the power Thanos is owed.”

Those flickering eyes stared through her.

“He is gone. Let the Collector keep the vessel. But the work remains.” She pulled back from the spirit and glanced at the doorway to her Sakaaran quarters, sensing the arrival. “Your lordship.”

“Yeah, yeah yeah.” A long, almost spindly hand festooned with jewels whipped at her from within the drape of a too-large golden robe. The Grandmaster’s eyes darted around, and if he saw the ghost, he didn’t seem to care. “Listen, babe. The money doesn’t mean anything to me, okay? It’s nice, but money is, uhhhh…. Easy for me to make. Time, at most. I got time. I got plenty of _that_. It’s the methodology behind it. The purpose, the road to El Dorado - you know, forget the metaphors.” The hand continued to whip around, gesturing wildly at who knew what. “So. We got skinned out there, on the, the Triuumvante or whatever.”

Proxima said nothing to correct the witless immortal. Swan had advised her to let him be as he was, very well. It was difficult. The Grandmaster was difficult, and he did not understand that his losses here were minimal. _She_ had lost much today. A brother. A friend. A weapon.

“That’s a setback. That’s, uhhhh, very bad. For you. So, I know what’s gonna be next. You’re gonna need some time, and you’re gonna need some more of my guys, and that’s fine, I’ve already got Topaz on it - sweetie, Topaz, baby, you do, right?” He swung his head out the door and nodded enthusiastically at someone.

“They could stand to be more loyal, your lordship.”

The Grandmaster rolled his eyes at Proxima as he swung his face back inside, waggling the expression all the way down through his shoulders. “You _knowwww_ … I love to watch you guys work, you generals, and all. It’s really, uh, something. But, ah, it’s the techniques you have. Not everyone works best all rigged up like your Chitauri guys.”

“Your prisoner restraints would be perfectly useful enough, ensuring loyalty and free thought. On our schedule.”

“On a broad scale?” He piffled a noise through his flapping lips. “That’s a lot, I mean a _lot_ , logistically. You run some risks, you know, trying to control more than a dozen roided up sweaty guys on a trip-pad, it keeps the arena limited.”

“With certain of our technology, I’m quite sure we could counter the problem.” Proxima smiled, stepping towards him in a slithering, vaguely seductive way. It had worked on Corvus, when they were young.

The Grandmaster eyed her, somewhat more unsure than the young general had been.

“And with the restraints mastered, it might expand certain of your options. Why, imagine a grander battle royale, not constrained merely to the arena.” She smiled at him, as earnest as she did not feel. “The very world as a battleground, under your command. For all the universe to witness your entertainments.”

To his credit, the Grandmaster didn’t visibly recoil. He did blink, though, and then shook himself like a dog. “Baby, you are _intense_. But! But! It’s a good thought, it’s a _very_ good thought.” He snapped his fingers. “I’ll take it under advisement. Topaz! Remind me to think about that, give it a good snazzy deep think. In the shower, maybe. Or the bath. It’s bath night, great night… you’re always welcome, baby.” He managed to not make it sound like he hoped she would refuse.

Proxima inclined her head. “I must recommit myself to our next plans.”

“Of course, of course.” He looked relieved. “Well! All right, good talk, hey, where’s that snappy little number, the other girl?”

“She is away on other matters of some significance to her, your lordship. More than that, I do not know, I’m afraid.” Which bothered her more than she could elucidate. Certainly not information this creature needed.

“Well, let me know when she comes back. She was a _delight_ for sore eyes.” The Grandmaster sashayed out, instantly bored with the conversation and probably forgetting most of it.

“Corvus…” she whispered when the Grandmaster was well and truly gone, feeling the chill of her ghost. The chill was matched within her, dislike and roiling hate. “Sweet Corvus, tell me in dreams a secret stolen from Death Itself.”

She turned on her heel and snapped up her glaive, caressing it as she would have him, once. “Tell me how to slay even an immortal.”

. . .

Frej knew a fair amount about the terrain she was currently in. She had access to Loki’s laptop and its privately annotated copy of his report, which was conveniently cross-referenced with the earlier infiltration by a Natasha Romanoff. She picked her way through the quiet city with care, though, looking like nothing more than a stray cat, picking off the rare mouse here and there.

There were drones in the air on occasion, but they seemed a little more dull than she’d been prepared for. No central control at the moment, and very few guards. The bots stood still at the mouths of city streets. The rural villages of Latveria minded their own business, same as they always had, assuming that their secretive king was still among them.

Victor von Doom had not been seen since the events that felled the warlord Thanos. Trapped in Hell and the material plane observed tightly for his re-emergence by an artifact spell of Loki’s design, the country might as well be frozen within a cycle of repeating days.

Still, Frej was perfectly aware that nature abhors stagnancy. Things would change - and Spirit had told her of the vague suspicion Nebula had pieced together. One general was already on Earth, this was known. Why? Nebula wasn’t sure and neither was Spirit. It probably had to do with Loki, naturally.

But it also _might_ have something to do with the fact that another general was here. The mysterious Swan.

Armed with Spirit’s scraps of intel and SHIELD’s stolen briefing sheets, Frej was now skulking carefully around the outside of Doomstadt’s castle. She found it an ugly thing, of course, all jutting medieval stone and metal plating, cast together with the haphazard sense of aesthetics a scientist had when easily distracted by the next fascinating discovery, and she was grateful that there were low odds that the scent she was tracking would eventually end up inside.

She knew her Loki well, and knew how he shaped his words to hide things. Buried in the report was a secret he would never say aloud - the inside of the castle could be a terrifying place, and it would be far, far worse if its dark king returned. Hints of terrible experiments lay within, and forbidden magics. She trusted his judgment implicitly.

The scent she traced was a strange one. Cold granite after the rain, something like snapped ozone, and more concerning, a deep and corrosive fire. It wasn’t all magic, that smell, but some of it was. The latter, to her dismay. The smells of Hell, a conceptual plane that went beyond what faith knew of it and became something worse yet. The lair of demons, and things worse than demons, where only the most foolish or mad of sorcerers plied their bargains.

Frej’s fur prickled along her back, making her stop by the corner of a wall to plump herself and shiver in discontent until she felt in control again. Her poor Loki had felt like this, but he had been in a shape strange to him, and would not have known to his bones all of the old rituals felines do to center themselves. She was close, close enough to hear a thrum in the air.

At the edge of a long, broken wall, Frej began to hear the words and immediately shut her ears to them the way Loki taught her. She kept going, until she saw the speaker. Terrible things, eldritch and awful, spilled from the mouth of an impossibly lovely woman. Marble white knees were knelt upon scorched earth, two perfectly formed hands raised aloft in a plea. She wore black, dead and featureless black that lined her sculpted hourglass shape in a strangely purposeful way and revealed to Frej that everything about this person was engineered, and meant to be deadly.

From where she was, Frej could see the look of distaste on the Black Swan’s face. That was a puzzle itself, and Frej noted it down. Magic was difficult work if you didn’t love or at least respect the process. This edged closer to hate, as if there was no choice to her but to summon the blackfire veil between reality, speak to it in that forbidden language, and she loathed this need.

Frej looked _between_ the way Loki had taught, and saw the structure the Swan was building. A ripple went down her back again, wrinkling her skin until the fur just atop her spine raised all the way down to her tail. Her ears were straight back, and her eyes narrowed as she understood that this was not just a summoning spell. It was a command. And it was on the cusp of complete. Who knows how many days the woman had been here, forging the nearly impossible spell?

Spirit’s hunch had paid off. The worst was true. Frej hunkered down and waited, cursing all the petty human gods for placing her here in time for the climax of this obscenity. An after-report would have been better. A scouting trip, good enough. But no. She would bear full witness, instead.

The earth split with a screaming roar, and the air filled with the scent of sulphur and shit and molten metal. Black smoke curled towards the sky, touched with the same unearthly gleam as an exposed nuclear core.

A hand thrust up from that scorched earth, the skin bubbled with horrific old scars, scrabbling at the ground for purchase. Another hand, and then began the grunting, pained hoist upwards to the ground.

The Swan didn’t move to help him. She continued to kneel, her forehead now pressed to the ground and Frej couldn’t hear her words over the din of the sundered planes.

Doom pulled himself back up onto the Earth, unsteady but strong. He was naked, Hell having stripped his armor, his royal robes from him. Frej looked upon his awful, broken face and then looked away and begged her mind to forget what was there. Yet it burned behind her eyes, like a nightmare. This was no longer a being that could pass for purely human.

“Rabum Alal, Great King of the Unwritten Future, child of doom in whose blood burns hope itself. You are reforged.” The Swan continued to prostrate herself before the silent figure. “I have broken the eye that seeks to halt your coming. I have gathered the allies that will witness your rise. O, my King, let me tell you of what I have seen, so that it may be prevented and a new way forged.” She lifted her face and looked boldly into his, never flinching from the scabrous horror that begged for a mask. “Thy prophecy came to you too soon. You _are_ the one to save us. Thanos was not your true enemy, only a tenebrous moment in the stream of time, a warning, a marker. I have claimed his children and will bend them to become your own. I have put in motion the great work that will place the Infinite into your hand.”

Still mantled from tip to tail, her eyes enormous, Frej stepped back, deeper into the shadows. Loki’s watchful spell had been broken. Doom was free. All of this was dangerous enough. The woman continued to speak.

“My great king. I have cursed myself back through time to serve thee, for the future must be sacrificed on its own altar of bone.” She lifted her hands to Doom, a supplicant. “Let me love thee.”

Doom’s blazing eyes looked down upon the marble woman, and he whispered to her something Frej couldn’t hear.

“Of course, my king,” said the Swan. “And I have new robes laid aside for you.”

Another whisper.

“Anything, my lord. Anything for you.”

Doom bent towards the Swan, and that burned hand touched her forehead, gently. As if he had been waiting for her, all along. He lifted that awful head to examine his surroundings, and well-taught paranoia made it seem as if he looked at a darker corner of the broken garden wall a little longer than anywhere else.

Frej had seen enough. More than enough. She committed all these last details to her mind and then fled, first on four legs, and then, when she’d put enough space between herself and the cursed castle, rippled herself throughout dimensions until she panted safely deep within the SHIELD facility where her Loki currently slept.

. . .

Daisy walked with Loki towards the library and its corner he’d long ago commandeered for his use. Growing past just a private sorcerer’s space for contemplation, it had a bit of extra office as well, where he kept certain classified matters that related to the magical work he oversaw for SHIELD. Agent Pandora Peters, WAND’s primary assistant with a lot more sense in dealing with everyday people, had a ‘normal’ office on the other side of the wall, which was sometimes a wall in a purely theoretical sense. Daisy yawned, hugely. “I dunno, dude. I still think you’re being oversensitive.”

“Maybe.” Loki sipped his coffee. “It was a good play, that much honesty. But the trio has no reason for any of them to idle around this territory.”

“But they do, y’know, you’re the job.”

“And I’m safer here, out of the way, with my own eyes cast outwards for problems. So why waste the time? Lady Kara is too efficient for that. There’s something I’m missing. Something she tried to make sure I didn’t think to ask about when I had the chance.” He put his mug down on a nice desk he’d ‘borrowed’ from a dead sorcerer somewhere along the line, getting ready to sort out the morning’s stack of papers waiting for him. Frej jumped onto the desk, pinning them down with her butt. “Kit, now’s not the time. I slept poorly and I’m fit to argue about it.”

Frej meowed up into his face, insistent and sharp. Her paws patted on the stack of paper, making it crinkle. She began to cough in that deep, dry way that spelled trouble for any cat’s human companion.

Loki stared at her. “Really? Really, we’re going to make it that kind of day?”

“Good kitty,” said Daisy, vastly more amused.

Frej summoned up a much bigger cough, and then, with a wince and a wiggle, dry-heaved a rolled piece of paper in front of him. She patted at it, insistent, then began meowing up at him with new desperation.

Loki looked at Daisy, then gingerly picked up the - actually oddly clean - roll of paper. He opened it and then sat down heavily in his chair.

_Time I talked_ , read the note, messily scrawled with a pen dragged by tiny teeth across paper. _I need a pad like Spirit uses_.

_Doom is not coming._

_Doom is here_.

Loki read the note twice, his fingers going cold. Then he looked into the flerken’s face and saw a glimmer of genuine fright in her eyes that he recognized, that, Gods help him, he knew too well. He put the note down and scooped the flerken into his arms, letting her burrow under his neck for comfort.

“I’ll go get a tablet from Resources,” said Daisy, and she took off in a run.

“It’s all right, Frej. It’s all right,” said Loki to the animal in his arms. “You’re safe now.”

Frej meowed into the hollow under his throat. She wanted to believe him, and would again, in a little while. She, young, and unlike others with equal good cause, had always believed in her Loki.

But for now, the ruins of what had once been a man still burned behind her eyes. Seeing her.

Seeing everything.

~ _Fin_

_Those who have crossed_

_With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom_

_Remember us-if at all-not as lost_

_Violent souls, but only_

_As the hollow men_

_~ TS Eliot_

_6/3/2020 - all rights to the usual suspects. thanks for coming._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had bigger plans for Doctor Doom in the original Codex series, but he got squeezed down as I began to weave more than enough plot threads towards a proper conclusion. He came back to mind pretty early, though, way back when I had the idea for another arc and then tabled it after I saw what the Infinity movies were shaping up into.
> 
> But he’s been lurking around the fringes for a while. The Black Swan previously becoming part of the Children here was always meant to be a hint to those that knew about at least some of the Battleworld comic events and related stories. If you don’t, don’t worry. Like a lot of major comics events, they can be extremely unwieldy and outright obtuse for casual readers (although I do recommend a side story called Secret Wars: Planet Hulk from the Battleworld for a fun tale of Captain America and Devil Dinosaur). What appears in my stories should always be much more straightforward to follow and do not require reading comics to understand. I try to introduce anything we’d need on separate fancanon terms. This Swan will get an even clearer examination when it’s time.
> 
> Anyway. With the surprise of Frej and other flerkens coming into the series, it made for a perfectly dreadful parallel situation here, didn’t it? Sorry, Frej. You’re a good kitty. You’ll be okay.
> 
> So now we know why Swan is on Earth, and why a prior epilogue had her heading towards Latveria. We know the Ebony Maw is on Earth, too, but not why. We know Proxima Midnight is no longer entirely balanced, and that Corvus Glaive is still here. Sort of. We know Queen Farbauti is about to deal with a civil war, and we know Coulson is leaving SHIELD before too long, and that Thor is preparing to be king. Happy times! I mean, I guess they could be worse.
> 
> (As another reminder, one of the things I did very early on in writing the Codex was fold The Other, the alien from the first Avengers movie with a hold on Loki, into Corvus Glaive, a comics character created after and inspired by the film. And then they put comic Corvus into the movies and I threw up my hands and stayed with this non-canon composite version. I apologize for any confusion)
> 
> On the bright side, Loki has built himself a larger ‘family’ than he ever could have expected, one that accepts him openly, some that are new meets and are some of my favorite OCs. I hope you’ve been enjoying them (I’ve been wanting to bring Tam in for a couple years!). And his original family is making strides, too.
> 
> So, things will be busy for Loki for a while longer. As ever, I don’t yet know when we’ll be back on AO3, 2020 has everyone, if you’ll forgive me, absolutely fucking fucked one way or another or in multiple ways (now I have to take my laptop in for emergency service???!!??!?!? AUGH??!?!?). But we WILL be back - with Farbauti’s war, and, quite possibly, with a story only tangentially Codex ‘Verse starring (checks notes, scans the emptying auditorium) um, Everett Ross?
> 
> Bear with me, if I get to his story it’s because, like Generation of Animals and its multiple chapters of merrily abusing Nazis, I have Some Things I need to purge and will use fiction to keep it fun. And Martin Freeman is so, so good at being angry.
> 
> Keep healthy out there. I love you guys, it’s why I keep writing. And for real, dude, what is up with this year, oh my god what the fuck, anyway, fuck the regime. Stay safe. Stay true.


End file.
